In an era of rock music high on nostalgia, it's tempting to be cynical about a group of millennials playing jangly songs about the year 1975 — they're kind of asking for it, really.
Mile End's Heat have received this criticism, and while it's true that the music they make recalls the casually iconoclastic proto-punk we romanticize today — singer/guitarist Susil Sharma's conversational baritone is particularly evocative of an early Lou Reed — they're also updating the form with a more maximal production demeanour borrowed from the dream-pop of the '90s, working at a hybrid that sets them worlds apart from & Nico-era VU.
Surrounded by band mates carefully adjusting pedal settings and adding harmonies to his songs at a packed 1 a.m. Cabaret de la Dernière Chance set last night (September 4), if anybody watching Sharma's band arrived with suspicions, they probably didn't go home with them.
Mile End's Heat have received this criticism, and while it's true that the music they make recalls the casually iconoclastic proto-punk we romanticize today — singer/guitarist Susil Sharma's conversational baritone is particularly evocative of an early Lou Reed — they're also updating the form with a more maximal production demeanour borrowed from the dream-pop of the '90s, working at a hybrid that sets them worlds apart from & Nico-era VU.
Surrounded by band mates carefully adjusting pedal settings and adding harmonies to his songs at a packed 1 a.m. Cabaret de la Dernière Chance set last night (September 4), if anybody watching Sharma's band arrived with suspicions, they probably didn't go home with them.
