Review: Cohesion, Night & Day Cafe, 2006
Original Review for BBC Manchester Online - http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2006/09/01/260806_cohesion_feature.shtml
Cohesion at Night and Day Colin Warhurst (gig: 26/08/06)
Cohesion started warming up long before their start time, as they stood round chatting with the various punters, newcomers and regulars of Night and Day in a genuine effort to mingle with the crowd and raise some enthusiasm before they went on stage.
True, an ad-hoc T-shirt and merchandise stand had also been assembled at the front of the venue, but by the end of the gig people were queuing, for the right reasons, to sign up to the mailing list, buy the new CD for a quid - it was the launch night for their Shadows In The Shade EP after all - and to grab themselves a bright orange t-shirt!
When the band did take to the stage, they took off from the word go! Kevin McPhillips’ emotional guitar twangs bound up with Andrew O’Hara’s soaring vocals mean that Cohesion push all your emotional buttons at once. Every song feels like an entire soundtrack to a cinematic epic, and while each song differs from the next, the Cohesion ‘sound’ is firmly stamped across the set.
Can’t Ignore’s impeccably timed and explorative basslines combine with guitar that seems like effortless improvisation, belying the amount of practice that must be put in to achieve such a tight sound. The melodic and pop friendly lyrics of Everyone’s Got Someone perfectly juxtapose and just to underline their diversity, they close with the foot-stomping roof-raising anthem that is Everafter.
It was a safe bet that their large following, the t-shirt selling and their sheer enthusiasm to make it seem as if they playing for every single individual gathered a few more fans to the Cohesion fold. I signed up on the way out and I’ll be waiting for the postie to drop off my new t-shirt.
Cohesion at Night and Day Colin Warhurst (gig: 26/08/06)
Cohesion started warming up long before their start time, as they stood round chatting with the various punters, newcomers and regulars of Night and Day in a genuine effort to mingle with the crowd and raise some enthusiasm before they went on stage.
True, an ad-hoc T-shirt and merchandise stand had also been assembled at the front of the venue, but by the end of the gig people were queuing, for the right reasons, to sign up to the mailing list, buy the new CD for a quid - it was the launch night for their Shadows In The Shade EP after all - and to grab themselves a bright orange t-shirt!
When the band did take to the stage, they took off from the word go! Kevin McPhillips’ emotional guitar twangs bound up with Andrew O’Hara’s soaring vocals mean that Cohesion push all your emotional buttons at once. Every song feels like an entire soundtrack to a cinematic epic, and while each song differs from the next, the Cohesion ‘sound’ is firmly stamped across the set.
Can’t Ignore’s impeccably timed and explorative basslines combine with guitar that seems like effortless improvisation, belying the amount of practice that must be put in to achieve such a tight sound. The melodic and pop friendly lyrics of Everyone’s Got Someone perfectly juxtapose and just to underline their diversity, they close with the foot-stomping roof-raising anthem that is Everafter.
It was a safe bet that their large following, the t-shirt selling and their sheer enthusiasm to make it seem as if they playing for every single individual gathered a few more fans to the Cohesion fold. I signed up on the way out and I’ll be waiting for the postie to drop off my new t-shirt.
