We’re getting flooded with acronyms, so why not another one? This time for a much-maligned term a “supergroup”. It had its troubles since Blind Faith came along the way back then (but then, their title was deserved), and it was misused on oh, so many occasions. Yet, here comes another one. It is BNQT - Eric Pulido of Midlake (actually more or less the whole band is involved since the rhythm section is here), Jason Lyle of Grandaddy, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Fran Healy of Travis and Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses. On paper quite a lineup with quite an obvious acronym, but do they provide a musical banquet on not so imaginatively named “Volume 1”.
Happy to report, they get a great yes from these quarters. I guess it has quite a lot to do with the fact that both the assembled lineup and I are fans of what you would call Seventies harmony soft rock. Think CSNY, ELO, 10cc… I’m sure there are other acronyms to b found naming some other great names of the possible genre. First of all, there’s no go bashing. Every main player gets to do two songs, so manage. And it seems none of them were holding back as far as the quality of songs they came up with for the project. What they also did is hold to a loose theme that could hold a general name “let the audience enjoy”, nothing from the quite often indulgent category “my pains”.
Another serious plus is that they all participate in each other’s materials with no intention to overpower, as well as the fact that the arrangements were worked out almost to perfection. In essence, we get a set of 10 excellent quality pop/rock tunes that are as enjoyable to listen to as they were obviously enjoyable to make. Doing “not so serious” music is actually very serious thing if you want to come up with good results. And BNQT does come up with a musical banquet, Seventies style.
