Send "The Gift " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Portugal’s the Gift is a big deal in their home country and in parts of Europe. Their fifth released and latest album, Explode, which is also their first album in five years, was released in March in Portugal, and it immediately went right to the top of the nation’s charts and holed up in the Top 10 for more than 10 weeks. In Europe, the band has taken the stage with the likes of Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and Klaxons, and they’ve won an MTV Europe award for being the best Portuguese act in 2005. I read a post on the Tasty Ears blog out of Vancouver, Canada, when I was doing some reading up on the group, and the blogger made the comment that the Gift are to Portugal as the Tragically Hip was to Canada for a large swath of the 1990s: a nation’s band. That’s an apt comment, as the group has moved units of their albums in the tens of thousands – not bad for a largely regional band, and one that has been largely DIY throughout their 17 years of existence; DIY in the sense that they finance their own recordings and lack any traditional management. However, things are changing as the Gift is setting their sights on American shores with Explode, though this isn’t the first time they’ve ventured overseas—in 2003, they were the opening band of a U.S. tour with the Flaming Lips. There’s a sense with Explode that it is meant to be a fortunes game changer for the band in North America, and the band members have roped in some serious artillery to beef up their sound and image. None other than Ken Nelson has produced the album, a guy that’s worked magic for another European band that you might have heard of: Coldplay. For the accompanying video for the album’s first single, “Made for You”, the band hired actors Lukas Haas (probably most famous as being the child star of the 1985 Harrison Ford vehicle Witness) and Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) to ape playing along to the song, ostensibly pretending that they are the Gift—a move, it would seem, to make the band much more palpable to U.S. audiences. Then there’s the colourful and striking cover art, which was lavishly photographed (along with the band photos in the insert) at the annual spring Holi festival in India. It appears that no expense was spared to make Explode a big commercial success outside of the Portuguese music community. The Gift, as an entity, have a kind of not-quite psychedelic, yet vividly textured keyboard-driven sound that is at times reminiscent of the Polyphonic Spree, but also recalls the bombastic moments of such ‘70s Europop acts as Queen and ABBA. However, their resulting album is a bit of a tepid affair; Explode barely does. The whole album is coated with a glossy arena rock production that sounds flat and uninspiring, if not downright cheesy, and does nothing to bolster the fact that Explode doesn’t really offer much in the way of earworm-like hooks. The music is actually reflected in the art of the band members that accompanies the album: flecks of paint that are thrown at the band in an almost Jackson Pollock splatter. It’s as though the Gift just threw a bunch of ideas at a wall, hoping that anything would stick. Obviously, the five year layoff between albums didn’t seem to do very much to inspire the group. The prime offender is the more than 12-minute long “The Singles”, which is almost a spiritual cousin to the similarly long “Siberian Breaks” by MGMT, a song that careens widely all over the place stylistically, shifting gears between different movements, before quite literally stopping—as though the song had run out of gas. It seems apparent that this is meant to be the band’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment, but the song just simply overreaches itself. However, that’s not the only place where the group reaches for epic territory: there’s the eight-and-a-half minute synth ballad “Always Better If You Wait for the Sunrise”, which sounds like the sort of thing that a-ha could have tossed off in their sleep. It’s actually not quite bad, but it could have been pared down without losing its triumphant effect. Elsewhere, “RGB” offers an astounding guitar hook at the beginning of the track, but the band doesn’t really know what to do with it—it never blossoms into a full chorus—which is too bad as it really stands out and could have been an anthemic opening single that reached to the back of the bleachers. Album opener “Let It Be By Me” is simply a round that goes around in circles with extra effects and instruments being added layer by layer for five minutes, before breaking down and collapsing on itself....full text |
| Blogspot |
| My first choice for our new column are the portuguese band named The Gift, they are Sónia Tavares, Nuno and John Gonçalves and Miguel Ribeiro, from Alcobaça. In this album they invited additional artists like Paulo Praça - guitar, Nathalie Portela - additional voice on "Mermaid Song", Ken Nelson - additional voice on " Suit Full of Colours", Mário Barreiros - drums and Nuno Ruas - tambourine on "My Sun". The album "Explode" was released in 2011, firstly on their website where they invited their fans to pay whatever they wanted for the album. After they would released a new song every day for eleven days in a row, the first song was released on February 27 and the name was RGB. On March 21 it was released the fisical version of the album, this version also has many pictures of the members on Holi celebrations, a Hindu comemoration as shown on the cover. The cover picture as much as the others promo photographs by the amazing Poras Chaudhary. The band decided to prove their opinion about the media nowadays, their influence in society and how much is truth of what is released and published on the media. On March 10, they revealed that was already a music on youtube. That video was already playing for two weeks but published that the music was from a new duo Lucas/Lukas, formed by two young actors Lukas Haas and Isabel Lucas, but afterall it was only The Gift's video for a new song "Made for You". This can also be seen has a joke which the american actor and the australian actress accepted to enter in. The video of "Made For You" which can be seen at the end of this post was produced by Carleton Ranney. The Gift mentioned on their last e-mail (when they sent the songs to their fans by e-mail) that they wanted to do what Joaquin Phoenix did on "I Am Still Here", as Bansky with his "Exiy through The Gift Shop" such as Orson Welles did a few decades ago. The album is composed by 11 songs ( + one on the special edition) Let It Be by Me (5:16) : It's a very hardcore song as a first one. Very electrical, deeply distorted this song is a complete risk that results at the end, it's a good way of starting the end. Catches our attention from the beginning probably thanks to the melodic drums or the synthesizers on the instruments. The voices are a bit changed, in another song I wouldn't probably result but here fits perfectly on the rhythm and electronic violin which sticks amazingly good on the music. After listening the album over and over again, my opinion remains that it's a bit risky mainly because usually it's not their style but a very good song and a different way of beginning an album so good like "Explode". "It's just a matter of you and I, we try to fly away And see what things will calm my soul And God knows things We're doing wrong" Made For You (4:42) : The surprise song, the one that all the media published has Lucas/Lukas even with the voice of the gorgeous Sónia Tavares. The lyrics are so so gorgeous and damn strong, the instrumental is stunning. Made for You was the chosen song for the Gift's question "How much the world is influenced by the media and how much we can believe in them." It's strong but at the same time it's very beautiful. I enjoyed what they did by publishing on youtube by Lucas/Lukas a few days before the first song release. Two weeks later The Gift revealed what they did and that made me proud, I enjoyed and understood so well what they wanted to share with the fans and general public: We must not believe in everything that we listen/see out there. Be aware!...full text |
| Theowlmag |
| 2011 is the year of Explode! So says the Portuguese band The Gift, of their sixth album releasing this summer, five years after their last album Facil de Entender in 2006. The sound label given to this band is alternative/electronic/folky/pop/rock and they do their very best to achieve all those genres throughout the 11 tracks that make up Explode. Hell, they cover all those bases on the 12 minute track “Singles” as the song swoops nicely from upbeat pop-rock to a quiet melody, emphasizing the deceptively simple lyrics. A track sung in all Portuguese, “Primavera” is practically a template for how to properly use a synthesizer. If you’re a fan of difficult to categorize music, such as Bjork or Sigur Ros, then this is right up your alley....full text |
The Gift lyrics
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