Music
Fat-Suit, Stereo, Glasgow
Rob Adams
FOUR STARS
There's a buzz circulating about Fat-Suit and it's one that's been well-earned. Just getting this rugby team, numbers-wise, of a band with busy individual schedules into the same room is an achievement in itself but over the past year they've also organised a work load including numerous domestic festivals and a European tour that took them into Ukraine, where they lifted local spirits dampened by personal losses in a war zone. Evidence of the latter can be seen on YouTube.
Back home on Tuesday they created the sort of occasion that people clearly want to be part of, a veritable Mardi Gras, appropriately enough, their very own Fat-Suit Fat Tuesday to officially launch their second album, Jugaad. It's a sun-bright, pulsating blast of energy, tempered by mood changes that offer quietude and repose between an insistent rhythmical bounce and earworm-like melodies and motifs carried on brass and strings. In person these qualities are magnified.
There's much that's celebratory about this music, a comingling of genres where the sort of heavy metal bebop that the Brecker Brothers once tore into with force majeure blossoms from decidedly romantic Scottish fiddle refrains and tricky-dicky, utterly in synch guitar, bass and keys riffing energises exploratory blowing on trombone, saxophone or flugelhorn. Air guitar buffs also get a good few chances to scratch their midriffs as high octane plectrum and string manipulation adds to the ferment.
It's possibly the sheer togetherness that Fat-Suit has developed that thrills the most, though. That and the new material worked up since Jugaad's recording suggesting that the band might be just getting started. Watch this space - it's going to be an experience.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article