The Disraelis

Chart Attack ( Aug 13, 2008 )

Benjamin Disraeli was, among many other things, the British Prime Minister responsible for the creation of the modern Conservative Party in 1846. Whether or not The Disraelis know the history of the influential man with whom they share a name, the tribute illustrates where this .... Toronto .... trio see themselves on a geographic plane. The Disraelis relish in British post-punk evocative of The Smiths on this five song EP, but their tendency to wander into the shimmering realm of shoegaze brings Creation bands to mind. Behind a curtain of reverb, singer/bassist .. Cameron Ingles .. mutters with a British inflection that might be convincing enough to trick Morrissey himself, while Colin Bower layers on guitar that's simultaneously hushed with sadness and glistening with hope. While their low-fi aesthetic accurately conveys the music to which they are indebted, I can't help but feel the sound they're striving to achieve lies somewhere beyond the spatial and somewhere behind the temporal realms in which they are currently reside. Zach Vitiello

View page, here;
http://www.chartattack.com/reviews/58541/the-disraelis - Chart Attack (Aug 13, 2008)

Background/Composition: The city of Toronto is going through a bit of a psychedelic resurgence these days and the Disraelis are active participants within this new/old scene. It almost makes one pine for the good old days when Yorkville was infested with hippies instead of yuppies. Their blend of Psych and New Wave have made fans out of local promoter Dan Burke and DJ-turned-label-founder Davy Love and after tonight's show, they've earned quite a few more.

Grade: 91

Comment: We should all be proud of the Disraelis. Not only did they play their own show, but singer Cameron also lent a hand to friends The Easy Targets when they had issues with their equipment. Cameron fiddled and banged and eventually helped solve the problem. This sense of community spirit will only help the Disraelis in any future endeavors.

Achievement of Rock 'n' Roll Expectations
80-100: Exceeds skill and knowledge expectations, i.e. rocked us so hard we peed our pants.
70-79: Achieves required skills and knowledge. Meets rock 'n' roll standard.
60-69: Demonstrates some skills. Approaches rock 'n' roll standard.
50-59: Demonstrates some required skills and knowledge in a limited way.
00-50: Has not demonstrated required skills or knowledge.

Learning Skills: E=Excellent, G=Good, S=Satisfactory, N=Sad Really

Oral And Visual Communication
Eye Contact: N
Pronounciation: G
Stage Presence: G
Stage Banter: S
Image: G
Appearance: G
Use Of Stage: G

Strengths/Weaknesses/NextStep: If the Disraelis have one fault, it's their lack of interaction with the crowd. Lead vocalist and bassist Cam wore sunglasses on stage and looked extremely bored. This detachment from the audience is not healthy, but he did partially redeem himself with a pretty badass sneer whilst rocking out.This gap left a little extra work for the other two Disraelis, but drummer Dave Barnes picked up the slack pretty well. He commanded visual attention with manic headshakes, as if he were saying, "No, no, don't stop a-rockin.'"

Musical Analysis
Level Of Participation:
G Problem Solving: G
Teamwork: E
Work Habits: G
Organization: S
Audience Participation: S
Sound: G
Composition: E
Songs: E

Strengths/Weaknesses/NextStep: Guitarist Colin Belfast was a joy to watch and he might want to look into enrolling in the enriched guitar class in the fall. His complex soaring guitar arrangements contributed greatly to the band's appeal and rich sound. The Disraelis were very tight musically, but could stand to be a bit better prepared. I suggest in the future making up a setlist beforehand, instead of conferring around the drums after every song.

Other Skills And Areas Of Interest
Charisma: S
Problem Solving: G
Teamwork: G
Sexiness: G
Haircut: E
Indie Rock Footwear: E
Nods To Disposible Fashion: G
Cool Equipment: G
Level Of Inebriation: G
Actual Ability: E

Strengths/Weaknesses/NextStep: The Disraelis scored so well this year because they seem to be the total package. All three members sported unique shoe choices, and seem to have things covered on the style front. But I have to caution them against falling into the skinny jeans and T-shirt trap, there is so much potential here, I'd hate to see it foiled by poor choices in the shirt department. I feel that the band should take initiative this summer, maybe study abroad in the U.K.? At the very least, I'd say go to your local record store and study Joy Division, Icicle Works and The National, which are all obvious influences.

View page, her;
http://www.chartattack.com/reviews/51983/disraelis-the-silver-dollar - Chart Attack

The Disraelis carved out their corner of the North By Northeast's opening night as one of few groups in the festival who come off as established pros, those who take you infinitely more seriously than they take themselves.

The sophisticated Brit-pop three-piece sounded like there were more of them. The keep-up falls on the shoulders of singer/bassist, Cameron Jingles, whose vocals fall somewhere between the careless inhibition of grunge and those of Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer. The live show emanates energy, and in much abundance in the case of drummer, Dave Barnes - who is a consistent and creative mash-up, which he plays up as much as the genre allows.

They don't branch out much from their unique pop-ish niche, but never suggest any real reason why they should. Guitarist Colin Belfast is given free reign to travel the fret board through most numbers, adding accents and peaks peppered throughout his dominantly backup roll. Surrounded on the bill by more than a few acts who milked the mercy applause, they were certainly the act on the night the Silver Dollar would have bid for sans festival.

Their older stuff showcases more depth than that which made it onto their April EP release, Demonstration, but the response to it was about the same. Plagued by shifty sound levels all night, the Toronto natives not only provoked the festivals first impromptu jitterbug session (and only one, God willing), but also lived up to hype that built around them at the festival last year.

Go here to read article on-line: http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/NXNE_2008/NXNE_2008_The_Disraelis_The_Silver_Dollar.html - Soundproof

(3 out of 5 stars)

This local trio wear their sunglasses at night, not simply to look cool (though, hey, it never hurts) but to make a dark world look even darker. Though Demonstration’s Smiths-aping cover art makes their allegiances plain, The Disraelis expand outward from their ‘80s mope-pop base to absorb the genre’s post-punk past and shoegazer future. Like his buddy Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre), bassist Cameron Ingles sing-speaks in a dry-icy, faux-Brit brogue that exudes intensity and aloofness in equal measure, but Colin Bowers’ shimmering Johnny Marr guitar supplies the yearning that Ingles can’t always bring himself to express (most palpably on the winsome jingle-jangle of “In Memory” and sinister rock-out “Distance”). To a younger Britpop generation beholden to the pub-rock slop of The Libertines, The Disraelis will seem anachronistically austere, but then that’s sort of the point: to get back to a time when a band’s mystique wasn’t pissed away by mugging for the tabloids.

view page here
http://www.eyeweekly.com/music/ondisc/article/33327 - Eye Weekly

Disraelis @ The Silver Dollar
Friday June 08, 2008


Toronto is going through a bit of a psychedelic resurgence these days and the Disraelis are active participants within this new/old scene. It almost makes one pine for the good old days when Yorkville was infested with hippies instead of yuppies. Their blend of Psych and New Wave have made fans out of local promoter Dan Burke and DJ-turned-label-founder Davy Love and after tonight's show, they've earned quite a few more.

We should all be proud of the Disraelis. Not only did they play their own show, but singer Cameron also lent a hand to friends The Easy Targets when they had issues with their equipment. Cameron fiddled and banged and eventually helped solve the problem. This sense of community spirit will only help the Disraelis in any future endeavors.

Lead vocalist and bassist Cam wore sunglasses. This detachment from the audience is not healthy, but he did partially redeem himself with a pretty badass sneer whilst rocking out. This gap left a little extra work for the other two Disraelis, but drummer Dave Barnes picked up the slack pretty well. He commanded visual attention with manic headshakes, as if he were saying, "No, no, don't stop a-rockin.'"

Guitarist Colin Belfast was a joy to watch and he might want to look into enrolling in the enriched guitar class in the fall. His complex soaring guitar arrangements contributed greatly to the band's appeal and rich sound. The Disraelis were very tight musically.

- chartattack.com

by Jordan Bimm and Ben Spurr

Issue date: 6/11/07 Section: Arts and Entertainmen...

Thursday June 7

At this show, local Brit-psych-inspired trio The Disraelis confirmed their status as one of my favourite Toronto bands. Each song channeled dark waves of Joy Division and New Order but with a simple drums-bass-guitar setup-no synths in sight. Also present (mainly in the rhythm section) were dreamy flashes of shoegazers My Bloody Valentine and Ride, while guitarist Colin Belfast showed more affinity with the chiming melodies of Johnny Marr, Bernard Sumner and early U2. On stage, bassist and vocalist Cameron hid behind a pair of Ray Ban shades and sneered when he hit a few wrong notes, while drummer Dave Barnes rocked out with his head down and added an energetic presence to the otherwise static stage. But The Disraelis aren't about antics or stage moves, they're about playing canyon-filling riffs that ring in your ears for days after the show
- Varsity Online

tuesday, july 08, 2008

So we're all familiar with how
much I love the shoegaze,
aren't we? Many bands have
caught my attention over the
last couple of years that easily
fall into that category, and now
we can add Toronto's The
Disraelis to that list.
The Disarelis are Cameron
Jingles, Colin Bowers and Dave
Barnes, and they understand
exactly what is takes to create
that stellar psych / shoegaze
sound. The ringing guitars
contain just the right measure
of distortion to make it sound
interesting without ever hiding
the melody away for extra effect. Cameron's vocals are almost lazy,
giving off the impression that very little effort was made to sound
cool, and that adds a whole other level of intrigue to their sound.
I hear traces of Joy Division in the raw vocals, and of Stone Roses in
the guitar based delivery, and this first EP is a must have as far as
I'm concerned. It starts with The Bitter Ash, where he vocalizes that
"the bitter ash tastes the same but I still want more." It is an
example of what I would consider to be an instant classic. In fact,
listening to this song makes me feel as if I must've heard it before in
my teens, because it instantly takes me back to being that angst
fueled youth that honestly had no reason to be angsty at all.The Disraelis Demonstration
EP opening riff from In Memory is reminiscent of U2 circa Boy, or the
self proclaimed punk years, while the melody is straight out of a John
Hughes movie, but in a good way. Blackmail is sung and performed
with reckless immediacy. David Barnes' drums are particularly
immediate, especially during the last half of the song, providing a
masterful enrichment to Jingles' declaration that "This Is
Blackmail!!!" You can almost sense the look in his penetrating glare
as he sings that he "knows how it feels, feeling old, feeling sad,
feeling cold, feeling pain that you don't know." Distance has a bit of a
harder edge to it, and the backing vocals create a sonic timbre that
fills things in nicely. On Earth is epic, and all I can do is encourage
you to listen to it.
The Disarelis are a band that MTV would love to corrupt and make
crappy, in much the same way as they did with bands like Interpol.
Thankfully this band seems genuinely not interested. And that
interests me, as it likely will others who come across their music. - It's Not The Band I Hate, It's Their Fans

Disc Review
THE DISRAELIS
(4 out 5)

Demonstration (Optical Sounds)
By: Jordan Bimm

This first EP from Toronto’s most melodic anglophiles effectively answers the spec­ulative alt-history question: what would a synth-less New Order have sounded like? Their sound is rooted in 80s post-punk guitar rock, and the track In Memory definitely sounds like a heartfelt update of Regret.

The trio’s strength is their lo-fi authenticity, and some instantly catchy bittersweet guitar melodies – the kind that would make Robert Smith proud – recur throughout the disc’s five solid tracks. Brimming with potential, the Disraelis also incorporate elements of shoegaze on standout song The Bitter Ash and display some psychedelic tendencies on Distance.

A local band to watch.

view the page, here: http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/discs.cfm?content=163936 - NOW Magazine