"The four serious young men of Volta Do Mar seem to think that post-rock needs a healthy dose of prog-rock drama and technique; fortunately, they have the chops and creativity to make a potentially disastrous approach sound wonderful. While many toiling in Tortoise's wake have misguidedly emulated the group's most soporific traits, Volta Do Mar keep listeners on the edge of their seats with bracingly abrupt dynamics and unconventional melodies that suggest more than a few King Crimson and Don Caballero LPs in the band members' collections. These dudes also wisely realize that singing is best left to the few gifted souls who can genuinely do it properly."
Dave Segal, Editor - Alternative Press
DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY (http://www.adequacy.net)
LIVE REVIEW
Who: Volta Do Mar
Where: Gala South Loft, Buffalo, NY
When: May 4, 2002
Reviewed by: Jeff Marsh
...But Volta Do Mar rocked the loft hard. You could tell these guys loved every minute of their show, and the fans ate it up. If you told me an instrumental band (primarily, anyway) could get the crowd as involved as at this show, I would have told you you were nuts. But these guys did it. The crowd gathered in tight, almost completely around the four members of the band. And the guys went through most of their latest album as well as a few new tracks.
What set their show apart, however, was the introduction of vocals as a more important element. The louder songs when the singer/guitarist tried to use the mic were foiled by a bad sound system that rendered his words inaudible, but often the band members would just shout the vocals together, sometimes pausing to shout them out, and that's when it worked best. They got the crowd to shout along, they blasted away with their double-bass assault as the singer and drummer shouted along, and they all shouted together. At one point, the guitarist picked up an acoustic, walked into the thick of the crowd, and went into a full acoustic song, just singing into the air and perfectly audible. Now that's playing to the crowd.
Volta Do Mar were good when I saw them last, but in their element with a crowd that knows and loves them, they were downright awesome. Not necessarily their best show, I imagine, due to sound issues (and alcohol, I'm guessing), this was still a very fun show. And with the band singing more often, the crowd was even more involved. I envy Chicagoans for being able to see the band play in their element all the time.
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