Turismo, Hull Adelphi, 29th September by Albert Dukes

Being a member of Turismo must make for a busy life; What with running what is easily the best looking and informative website of Hull's bands, giving seemingly endless interviews and press releases to the Hull Daily Mail - they're also the most written about band in the locality, too. Add to that the fact that they've recently lost a guitarist/vocalist and have introduced a fair bit of new material in their live set - there's got to be some extremely tired Turismos out there.

Having seen Tursimo on a few occasions, the main thing that strikes me is how variable their performances can be. I've seen them looking and sounding bright, perky and lively, and I've seen them dull, clunky and worried-sounding. Before losing a guitarist, Turismo were a quirky indie-sounding band with interesting and unusual songs that were (often) played in a straightforward manner that was often pretty tight and usually lively. If anything, the Turismo of a year or so ago were a slightly punky/folky mix who brought Supergrass to mind.

So, has losing a member made any difference? Well, it's hard to say - based on what a very busy Adelphi witnessed. As I have said, Turismo are a frustratingly inconsistent band. Especially when you consider the heights they are capable of reaching, musically speaking. The problem seems to be that once there's a couple of mistakes made, their heads go down and they can't seem to lift them up again. At least not during that gig, which gave the unfortunate impression that Turismo have only met once or twice before and had only decided on the set list moments before playing them.

Which leads to the new material. Clearly an inventive bunch (based upon the excellent "Songs To Panic To" demo) the new material sounds a bit like it was designed by a commitee aiming for this week's charts. Where the older songs had a quirky personality stamped all over them, the new material was largely lacking in melody, structure and direction. To me it was a real step backwards. On the other hand - perhaps it was due to simply having a bad gig. Perhaps on a better night, the new material would benefit from a more subtle performance. The new songs also sounded quite heavily in debt to The Coral - but a little bit punkier.

On the plus side, Baggot the front man had plenty of personality and kept trying to bring some life to the performance, but perhaps all the website maintenance, the interviews, the videos and the London gigs have just left them all too knackered to get it together on a consistent basis. In short - Turismo can do better, but they're going to have to reach a far greater level of consistency before they'll be worrying The Coral and co.

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