Definitely. Not maybe. Live review of Maybeshewill at The Garage

Maybeshewill *****
&U&I *****
Flood of Red *****
Waking Aida ***1/2**

The Garage, Islington, 17th October 2014

Dear brethren, on a pleasantly balmy autumn evening, we are gathered here today to give thanks to the music gods for the rich harvest laid before us. 

Who'd have thunk it, but we have a sell out for an evening of post and alt rock. You 'eard. A sell out. A full house. A brimming, drooling congregation of zealots, acolytes and good people (mostly with beards) gathered to celebrate the off beam. The challenging. The underdog. And, brothers and sisters, it feels bloody liberating.

Waking Aida ***1/2**
First to the pulpit are genteel post rockers Waking Aida. Pretty much from the same clan and gene pool as Maybeshewill, they kick things off with a seductive set of soundscapes, noodles, time signature tomfoolery and lush pads. 

Nothing too novel or startling, but a solid and thoroughly enjoyable first reading to kick off evensong.

Flood of Red *****
With the second reading from the book of Caledonians are Airdrionian alt rock tunesmiths Flood of Red. And we're treated to a spellbinding and intoxicating performance full of spiralling textures and meaty melody with big swollen balls. And all topped off by the almost angelic and seductive vocals of sideways-facing Jordan Spiers.

It's a heady and evocative mix. Great swathes of superb musicianship, huge, anthemic tunes and deep, almost menacing heavy thunder painting an almost menacing biblical scene with Spiers' shaft of heavenly light cutting through and delivering salvation. A Flood of Old Testament proportions indeed.

&U&I *****

Next to preach to the agog congregation are the delightfully mixed up and agnostic &U&I. Tonight, they feel like a guest reverend from a hardcore fanatical or fundamentalist church among the other generally lilting and charming homilies. They deliver spit and fire. Brimstone and ball crushing, acerbic fervour. And it's brilliant.

Tighter than a 70's male TV presenter or DJ's ringpiece every time the doorbell rings, the trio produce a surging maelstrom of mathy mayhem with every stop, beat, fill and ghost note nailed to within hyper a quantized microsecond. There's so much skill on offer, yet it never sounds mannered or sanitised. 

There's roughness aplenty. But mainly vocally through screams and hellfire yells as a counterpoint to the mesmerising playing and head-spinning precision. And it works a treat. Oh yes.

Maybeshewill *****

So, the readings have been delivered. The offering received. The heady incense burned. It's time for the main sermon.

As the first tantalising notes of the opening to the phenomenal album Fair Youth ring out and then mutate into the majesty and splendour of In Amber, it's clear that this is no ordinary priest; it's pretty much as close as we can get to The Big Man himself making an appearance. Holy fuck.

Everything here is as close to perfection as humble mankind can get. The raw nerve-shredding might and spine-tingling beauty of the Leicestershire quintet's work is definitely as near as dammit a religious experience. 

How on God's earth can instrumental music generate so much powerful emotion? When Mozart sat hunched at his candle-lit dais banging out his melodic masterpieces, he can only have dreamt that those same twelve notes he banged on about would still be being arranged a couple of hundred years later with the same fervour and heart-shifting splendour but with relevance, modernity and originality. Shivers.

And to make things even more unfairly goosebump inducing and heavenly, tonight the lads are occasionally joined on stage by a perfect horn section just to wring more joyous tears from the bewitched and converted apostles. Everywhere around there are lumps in throats and pants, moist eyes and erect neck and arm hairs. 

The band themselves appear far from oblivious to the collective joy and fanaticism; they seem genuinely touched and even taken aback at the fervour and dedicated appreciation pouring forth from the converts at their feet.

They're all big tunes tonight, but the really 'big' ones like Red Paper Lanterns, To The Skies From a Hillside, Critical Distance and Not For Want of Trying bring the chapel walls down. In fact the whole town's walls. There are crowd surfers (yup, at a post rock show!), gyrating pits and general joyous and unbridled mayhem as each delicious chord progression, arpeggio and module milks us all dry.

The lads  return to the stage after the thunderous and passionate collective entreaties of the baying crowd before finishing the service by delivering the coup de grace;  He Films The Clouds Part 2 with its sampled voicy bit which turns the awestruck mob into a massive community choir belting out every word with football fan gusto.


As the final arpeggio fades into the ether and the crowd erupts for one last time, it's apparent that we've been in the presence of something almost spiritual this evening. A mesmerising, rousing, hugely emotional and moving miracle. At the risk of sounding like some sort of fucking Jehovah's Witness or cod Missionary: You need Maybeshewill in your life. See the light. Let them in. A-bloody-men.

By the way, in no way am I religious. I concur with Mr Steven Fry: "Religion? Shit it!" Just thought I'd better clear that up.
But if there was a God, he probably is 5 guys from Leicester.

Marmolized. Live review of Marmozets at The Scala.

Marmozets*****
Lonely The Brave *****

Scala, Kings Cross, London, Friday 10th October 2014

As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness stumbles towards that ceremony where we burn effigies of Catholic conspirators and spend fortunes filling the sky with cordite and burning holes in wooly gloves, it seems only apposite to draw an autumnal parallel between tonight's pyrotechnics and the impending night of the roman candle.

So, let's get the taper lit, the pets behind the sofa, the biscuit tin of air bombs and bangers out from under the stairs and get things lit.

Lonely The Brave *****

First to be thrust into the bucket of soil to be sparked up on this alternating headline tour are Cambridge's movers and shakers Lonely The Brave.

It doesn't take long for the fuse to crackle into life and deliver its charge into the beefy payload as a huge sound cascades all over the packed confines of this grand old, whimsical venue.

As fireworks go, Lonely The Brave are a slick, impressive well organised display bursting with oohs and aahs, filling every corner of the space with impressive and gut-vibrating booms and a glittering smattering of pomp.

However, if there's one minor gripe, this son et lumiere, while full of grandeur and spectacular fizz, gets, well, a little repetitive. The songs, while pretty much all stadium-friendly anthems and chest-beating canon fire lack a little nuance or definition. A bit like a really impressive long series of dazzling bright white Chrysanthemum-like fusillades; although captivating and hypnotic, it feels like there's a need for the occasional change of pace. Of colour. Of, dare I say it, key.

That all said, like any band with an original or specific sound, the line between trademark oeuvre and repetition is a difficult and precarious one to tread. Muse, U2, Biffy et al all emanate a clearly recognisable scent and it doesn't seem to have harmed them all too much. Anyway, it's horribly unfair to unduly criticise a band so early on their journey and without a whopping sac bulging full of backed up goop to draw upon.

It's such an engrossing and explosive show, that the always slightly rum positioning of singer David Jakes behind the guitars isn't particularly noticeable here, camouflaged by the cascading joy, emotion and explosions, he delivers a pretty much flawless vocal performance which is helped out in the big sing-a-long bits by the gawping display watchers.

A crackling and cracking set which clearly puts this lot in the big cabinet of fuck off serious fireworks behind the counter and certainly hints of even bigger and brighter things to come. I just hope they do dip into the weird and wonderful, slightly more challenging and dangerous part of the chemistry set to change things up just now and again. 

Fiery and impressive stuff though.

Marmozets*****

As the lingering cordite and last wisps of Lonely The Brave smoke swirl into the Kings Cross sky, it's time for tonight's main display. Once again, the powder keg of a room is as full as a fat chav's grey sweatpants. And just about as hot. And stickily sweaty.

The lights dim and we're off. Right from the off, there's a different air. A different energy. Whereas Lonely The Brave were more pomp and circumstance, Becca MacIntyre and her  ragbag collection of MacIntyre and Bottomley brotherly miscreants are more downtown Helmand. Full on, gloves off, pin out relentless bombast.

Kicking off with the Ebola grade infectious Born Young And Free, the place melts down in the face of the incendiary assault. MacIntyre's voice has never sounded better. Swinging effortlessly between pitch perfect cleans and testicle rearranging growls and screams, the diminutive Tyke-ess leads her likely lads unquestioningly and loyally over the top into artillery saturated action.

The set unabatingly keeps delivering spectacular explosion after spectacular explosion. The variety box that is the brilliant new album (The Weird And Wonderful - definitely cemented as one of the albums of the year) is virtually emptied of one fizzing banger after another.

But this is no spluttering, crackling family selection. Oh no. This is weapons grade stuff. Massive thunderfucks. Laced with the heaviest of metals, jizz, shards of tortured Sheffield steel, bile, phlegm, napalm and face-melting lava. Like some sort of fierce, snarling pyroclastic flow, engulfing all in its path while sardonically and mischievously flicking the middle finger up as it passes.

Not some dad-lit 3 inch fizzling back garden Mount Vesuvius, but the raging hard on of the real thing; right in the hellish pit of the ejaculating crater. And it keeps coming. The malevolent album title track, the angsty Why Do You Hate Me and the drop tuned majesty of Hit The Wave keep the bombs raining in on the shell shocked, sweating, writhing hordes.

But like all pyrotechnic displays, it has to come to an end and seems too short. And, as a first album band and with only a couple of handfulls of previous math fuckery at their disposal, 10 songs is about as much as we can hope for. But with two last songs like the brilliant blitzkrieg of Move Shake Hide and the astonishing neutron bomb set closer Vibetech there's no feeling of being short changed. 

The B52 delivered Vibetech leaves a huge circular crater on the floor as a spastically frenzied circle pit opens up to accompany the mathy, Dillingeresque explosion that wrings the last drops of sweat from the adoring and by now mutilated crowd.

Tonight, Marmozets have moved up a notch and rightly can take their place among the very best of British live bands, in fact, fuck it, among the very best live bands full stop. Their energy, tightness, melody, technical ability, maturing songcraft and integrity sets them apart from the pack by a country mile. Brilliant, bewildering, explosive stuff.

Boom indeed.

Havana ball - Live review of Deaf Havana at Sub 89 Reading

Deaf Havana ****1/2*
Attention Thieves ***1/2**
Sub 89 Reading, 3rd October 2014

Firstly, apologies to Hearts Under Fire; due to having to struggle out to the wilds of Berkshire for tonight's show, I didn't hit the dizzying bosom of Reading in time for the early set. But the buzz in the attic after their opening slot seems to suggest they'd set things up nicely.

Attention Thieves ***1/2**

The first thing you notice about local lads Attention Thieves, well apart from bass player Ryan Davies, is that they're all bloody huge. They're like a performing New York sky line or an NBA team on a lads' night out (who've brought a wee friend out with them)

But it's not only physical hugeness that this quintet possess. There are chunky tunes, big drops, fat guitars, massive growls and impressive energy throughout their heavy alt rock infused set.

Ok, maybe a little harshly, there may be not a lot too new or staggeringly original about their offering (and tonight, they're fighting a sound man who buries most of the vocal deep down in the bombastic mix), but they're tight, bang on point, slick - without being anodyne or soulless - vibrant and, at times as heavy as a frustrated rhino's blue balls. And judging by the enthusiastic and warm reaction from the packed room, it works. 

There are many glimpses of influential underwear on show; from the sassy alt rock vibes of Hundred Reasons or even Reuben, the nu-UK rock sounds of Young Guns, tantalising hints of post pop punky ADTR chop and even a whiff of Alexis On Fire veering towards the lighter end of metal core a la Bury Tomorrow. Quite a heavy choice as an opener for the now far-from-heavy headline act, but, all-in-all, a bloody good big show from a bloody good big band. And little Ryan.

Deaf Havana ****1/2*
You know, it's a weird one that we're all here at all tonight. Not that downtown Reading is especially weird, it just feels like something must be going on in camp Havana. A couple of apparently random dates in a couple of smallish rooms in, well, provincial towns. A cancelled European tour. A new mini English tour coming up with no date in the Capital. 

After the last couple of years of apparent exponential growth, an evolutionary streamlining and defining of their blue collar 'people's rock' sound, a couple of brilliant and critically acclaimed long players, huge sell out shows at the likes of The Roundhouse, Clapham Grand and Shepherds Bush, even bigger main stage festival slots, support slots to some of the business's behemoths...now this. Back to basics. Rum indeed. 

Not that it matters a jot tonight, as by now the room is bulging and as packed as Ron Jeremy's budgie smugglers and there's a genuine crackle of excitement and anticipation hanging in the pheromone and sweat-saturated air.

From the opening banging bounce and beauty of Boston Square, any thoughts, fears or musing about why we're all here tonight are completely sublimated and eradicated. This is how to do a rock show. Oh yes. The small size and low ceiling simply serve to amplify and exaggerate the connection, the love, the energy and the consumate songcraft that these East Anglian buggers have dripping from every honest and integrity-filled pore.

James Veck-Gilodi's always special voice has seldom been better. I could swear he even smiles at least a couple of times during the riotous and perfectly executed set (although he hints at troubles, disgruntlement and has a pop at other bands' recent outputs - hmmmm, can't possibly imagine who he's referring to; maybe the spiky and wonderfully snidey paean to the toilet tour The Past Six Years is laden with extra bile and resonance this evening. Just sayin'.)

Whatever the reasons for being here, Deaf Havana sound as good or even better than they've ever sounded: every tune is an absolute banger with the salivating and cider-fuelled assembled bouncing, clapping and baying mob loving every second of the hour long rollercoaster ride.

There are genuine tear jerking moments in the thought-provoking and pain-soaked Anemophobia and majestic set-closer Caro Padre mixed with unbridled joy of toe tappers like Everybody's Dancing And I Want To Die and the woo hooo hoo hoos of I Will Try.


Whatever travails The Veck-Gilodi brothers and their merry band may or may not be going through, tonight they have cemented themselves as national treasures. Again. Let's hope they manage to keep this electrifying theme park ride on its rails and keep providing thrills, spills, gut-moving and heart-stopping moments.