Reviewed on Lucidculture.com (Our Favorite!) http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/ January 8, 2009 The Snow at le Poisson Rouge, NYC 1/7/08 Despite the early hour and the swankiness of the venue (usually not a selling point during a depression), it was nice to see the tables filled with an impressively invigorated crowd. The Snow are rocker Pierre de Gaillande’s main band right now; he’s one of those guys who manages to be in several at once (let’s see: Melomane; Sea Foxx; Morex Optimo, and also his English-language Georges Brassens cover band, Gorgeous George, who have a gig at Pete’s on January 15). They’re also one of the best bands in New York right now. As a writer, Gaillande alternates between artsy, slightly 80s-inflected quirkiness (XTC and Split Enz come to mind) and raw, barely restrained menace. Tonight was mostly the latter: this was the dark set, and the band came out swinging with an unleashed version of their signature song The Silent Parade, a big, crescendoing anthem in Gaillande’s ongoing “disaster song cycle,” this one about the blizzard to end all blizzards. The rest of the set was mostly biting, ominous, guitar-fueled material and some more lighthearted fare at the end, from the haunting Undertow, the torchy, noir Shadows and Ghosts (both sung by co-leader and keyboardist Hilary Downes) to the amusing Handle Your Weapon, an insomniac’s lament. Perhaps the best song of the night was Russians, their savagely funny critique of what happens when you introduce corrupt communists to corrupt capitalism: Mama, I’m home Mama, I’m sick I ate too much candy And sucked too much Liquor down And how come your humble reviewer knows all the titles to these songs, even though many of them aren’t on the band’s new cd True Dirt? Because the band made sure to tell the crowd what they were called before they played them. More bands should do that. It would help sales. Or at least help facilitate file-sharing. Which means publicity and that’s always good.