Underground105 神奇膠 Review:
Wonder Garl 神奇膠 started off the night with one of the more clever moves I’ve seen in a show: a quick levels check with a song consisting almost entirely of the word “soundcheck” sung repeatedly. And a good introduction it was, not only to their obvious sense of humour and presence on stage, but also to their sound. It is an obviously punky one, sounding much like the polished, slickly-produced popular punk of the 90s. They also have two singers, which made for quite a deep vocal section in all the songs. Their lead singer, however, takes them slightly away from the punk style, in what appears to be (in my limited observation) a distinct tendency among bands in HK, by eliminating any rasp from the voice, and choosing the clean, smooth voice quality that appears to be preferred by many here. This is something of a double-edged sword, because while this does make the music easier to listen to, punk and punk-like music feels somehow lacking without an edgy voice. Still, at their best in this genre, they are reminiscent of one of the local punk scene’s stalwarts, Senseless, with similar preference for flowing melodies, and long syllables held at a high note, as in 傻豬豬您愛我什麼. While these guys do not quite execute Senseless’ relentless assault of energy, both physical and musical, they’re no slouches on stage and were a lot of fun to watch. 噢!多麼痛的領會 was a lightly late-Ramones-ey number, while 一招收你皮 was a more boppy rock song, reminiscent of Hard to Handle. There were some hints of mainstream American rock too, with Super Friday Night sounding like an Aerosmith song, but more playful. I did not like . 放心吧！… much, though, as it sounded like a pop-funk version of Another One Bites the Dust, which seems slightly lazy to me.
I did also feel that there was some lack of consistence between their songs. They have clearly gone through the effort of making each song sound different from the others (which is a common trap for songwriters to fall into) which is great for an artistic portfolio, but structuring a set (or an album, come to that) is a different matter. It felt like they were doing a different shtick in each song, and at points this veered into being slightly disorientating, and off-putting from the good work they’d done building up an atmosphere during a song. Their set being better structured would’ve helped them a lot, but otherwise, it was a thoroughly enjoyable performance.
– Shashwati Kala
http://www.undergroundhk.com/v2/2012/10/20/underground-105/
