Sian Alice Group
The Dusk Line EP
(the social registry)
Known for playing guitar-based songs with a shimmering, expansive quality, as on their debut album 59.59, British band Sian Alice Group have really changed things up with this EP. The vocals of Sian Ahern, combined with the piano accompaniment of Rupert Clervaux, give these songs a firmly minimalist feel. This wouldn’t be a problem if Clervaux’s playing wasn’t so ham-fisted and amateur-sounding. With such a naked musical backdrop, Clervaux’s ineptitude severely hinders every track. Add that to the fact that one of the four tracks is a short solo piano improvisation, and one can’t help but feel this material would have been best left unreleased.
—Andrew Robinson
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2008.