Photo: Press
It takes all eight members of San Fermin to translate songwriter and composer for the band Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s music from laptop to the live environment. A classically trained composer, his vision for the band is a fusion of seeming opposites: sometimes over the top but definitely skilled.
With eight members, it would be a busy stage even if San Fermin’s style was delicate and mellow. As it is, there is a lot going on. The two lead vocalists embody the seeming lack of specific direction that the band seem to embrace, and will likely make their trademark.
Charlene Kaye is confident, present; her strong vocal, comparable to Dirty Projectors, is the driving force keeping the band firmly tilted towards the pop side of the spectrum, which is limiting on some tracks, as it competes with the instrumentals, sometimes to the detriment of the horns and violin. Coupled with frontman Allen Tate who sounds exactly, almost unnervingly like Matt Berninger of The National – a deep lullaby more suited to soft rock.
Kaye and Tate, opposite in vocal sound and performance style, complement each other nicely, especially exhibited in Methuselah, which – along with the infectious Sonsick – was an obvious crowd pleaser; both carried by lilting, emotive melodies that make them easy to the ear.
Each member of the band is engaging and brings a concentrated energy to their performance, which in itself makes for a great live spectacle. Their theatrical brand of baroque pop is requires your attention, or you might completely lose track of where the music is going, and it’s not the kind of live music which lends itself to the background very subtly.
San Fermin is such an amalgamation of sound; it has the components to be a unique and original set-up, and it is that, but their boldness might still need a little fine tuning.
