Papercuts 

Live reviews

• Papercuts

  Papercuts has spent the last few years making heartbreak sound rather lovely and fairly appealing, and those feelings are amplified when you see the live version of Jason Robert Quever’s vision. Quever’s band really came to prominence with their fourth album Fading Parade, released by Sub Pop. Lush and layered arrangements typified the record and added bones to songs influenced as much by The Zombies and Beach Boys as more recent touchstones like Galaxie 500 and Beach House, who Papercuts just happen to have toured with. Live, though, it’s hard for Quever to recreate such a layered sound so most of the songs we hear are stripped-back versions – and the reality is that often the tracks sound better given this sparse treatment. We really get to hear Quever’s breathy voice open up a little bit more as it’s not surrounded by instrumentation, and it’s a little surprising how powerful it is. Even though there’s no chance of re-creating all the album layers, Quever still drenches the guitar anthemics of ‘Do You Really Wanna Know’ in reverb and the booming bass of ‘Do What You Will’ sounds as bouncy as it does on Fading Parade. What’s best, though, is that we get to see the song writing process right in front of our very eyes as the simple pop arrangements of ‘Chills’ and ‘The Messenger’ show that underneath studio wizardry you still have to have a catchy melody.

  Papercuts is a band that knows when to pile on the instruments and when to keep it very simple. When you witness first hand that simplicity, you’d wonder why Quever would need anything else.

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  by AndyHannah

• Papercuts is definitely one of those bands that you would never imagine how they looked correctly. Don’t get me wrong, they are brilliant live, but you’d never expect that voice to come out of Jason Robert Quever. If you’ve never heard them before, the best way to describe their sound: dream pop rock. He is a man of big stature, with a full beard but when he starts to sing, his higher register voice throws you a bit, but then it melds well with the band to form a euphoric sound. Coming from San Francisco, you can really get an idea of how his environment may have influenced the music.

  Papaercuts have a smooth melody and Jason’s vocals really take the spotlight when you see them live. Opening with “Life Among the Savages,” his vocals flow with a lightness that contrasts well with the melody of his electric guitar. Immediately following they started to play “Dear Employee” which picks up the energy a bit. Jason finally introduced themselves and said a few things about the music and the process of their album. They finished off with two more songs called “Future Primitive” and “Afterlife Blues.”

  Even though it was a fairly short set, seeing Papercuts live is definitely an experience. Because of the laidback energy that they emit, hearing them live sounds a lot better than their studio versions.

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  by elissa-liong