Gramsci finding their voice

From left, Gramsci's David Holmes, Jasper de Roos, Paul McLaney and Dan Loughnan.

Paul McLaney's voice was out of control. The front man for Gramsci has a unique singing style, but even he thought it was a bit over the top at times.

"It's really easy to become indulgent as a singer," admits McLaney, "because you go, 'Wow, I can do that'. So you just do it 'cause you can."

On the band's previous two albums, Permanence (2001) and Object (2002), he admits he may have over-sung. But on the band's latest album, Like Stray Voltage, McLaney reins in his vocals and gives the songs some space.

"Singing serves a purpose and that's to deliver a song, so it's not like a platform for you to show off your voice. It's not about, 'Hey, look at me, I've got a really powerful voice. Check it out'. It's about the song."

An acoustic album that he recorded at London's famous Abbey Rd studios in 2003 with the indulgent title The Shadows of Birds Flying Fall Slowly Down the Tall Buildings, made him rethink his singing style for Like Stray Voltage. "I've listened back to previous things that I've recorded and I hear when I'm over-singing. But I don't hear it on this record, maybe once," he grins, "but it serves the purpose of the song."

Straight-talking guitarist, producer, engineer, and founding band member, David Holmes, agrees.

"This album is my favourite one for Paul's vocals.I think this is the one where he's really carved out a brand new sound. You've branched out dynamically ... "

" ... and I've stopped thinking about it," offers McLaney.

The pair met at a party in Napier about five years ago. They were introduced by Jesse Booher from Hawkes Bay band Looma ("Great band, great band," whispers McLaney) who Holmes had produced for.

"Jesse put on a party at his flat, invited me and invited Dave and the next day we went into the studio and recorded Easy [from Permanence]," recalls McLaney. At the time Holmes was doing mostly commercial music work from his small studio in Napier and had worked with Looma, and fellow Napier band Jakob.

"I was just looking for experience and Paul was talking about this type of music that I hadn't really ever heard - you know, acoustic guitar and electronic samply loopy beats kind of thing. In context, that was a big sort of thing at the time, and Permanence is the most dateable thing we've ever done. I listen to it now, and it just sounds ancient."

The follow up, Object, was, as Holmes describes it, a "total bedroom effort" with a heavy electronic vibe running through it. On Like Stray Voltage they do away with the electronic sound and turn up the guitars.

"We've been making music together for five years and we've never made a guitar record, and we're both guitarists, so it seems a bit silly," deadpans McLaney.

Holmes, whose guitar style is part bogan, part alluring, and part innovation, admits he's not the best guitar player in the world. "But it's 2005, enough about your vintage [expletive] this and that, let's get some of this technology and do something new with it."

McLaney reckons Holmes has upwards of 17 effects pedals on his pedal board. "But," says Holmes defensively, "the most important pedal is the volume pedal because I can make a crazy wall of something but I can turn it down a bit and not destroy everyone with it."

Holmes still maintains his biggest influence guitar-wise is Jakob's Jeff Boyle. And Like Stray Voltage crackles with those shimmering and brittle guitar textures, on the single All the Time in the World and epic final track Narrow Escapes.

Holmes: "I was really into perverting the arrangements of contemporary rock music I guess, if you have to put a nasty parameter round it."

"For me," says McLaney, "I was finding most of the rock music I was hearing incredibly join-the-dots. It was like everybody went out and bought the handbook and got the instructions to do it."

So Gramsci, also featuring bass player Dan Loughnan and drummer Jasper de Roos, have set out to do something different.

While they make you think of bands as diverse as Talk Talk (a huge influence on McLaney), Tool, and U2, with Like Stray Voltage they've made a romantic and heavy album.

That's a description they're happy with. "That's Paul and that's me," says Holmes.

"We approach music quite differently but I think that's where the good stuff is. He's coming at it from a romantic ideal, whereas I'm not, it's not an emotional thing, for me, it's about the details."