Abraxus

               Sat 1 July 2006                @ Bull and Gate

Astounding art-punk meets metal.

The guitar seems to be everywhere in Abraxus, this man is an orchestra of technique. He starts with a rhythm of irregular chops, rasps and revs, adds angry clang and grind chords, breaks for fast fizzing cycles, layers-on scooting squalls and squealing solos, then concludes with a whooshing spaceshuttle take-off. Not to be out-done, the drum pumps stop and start, reverberating roundly from every corner of the kit, the sound of mountains collapsing, the ricochets of a wild indoor-firework display. Somewhere in the midst, the female singer finds space for strong melodies, angry and accusing, warbles and curls that are perfectly pitched, sustained notes held firmly. A voice that encompasses nuances of Bjork, the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser, and Echobelly's Sonia Aurora. Where does she find the interstices in this mayhem? "You find a way", the lyrics respond.

At the end of a night of unreconstructed heavy metal, the Abraxus drummer and guitarman proved by far the most dynamic musicians to take the stage. The guitar playing is wild, but always under control. No self-indulgence for Abraxus in this set of sharp songs, each one assembled from a handful of coherent and fast-moving episodes. You can easily imagine the guitar producing a mean Star Spangled Banner interpretation, but without any respect for the current holders of the flag. This is an improbable hybrid of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Sugercubes. Santana had a mad axeman, but they never sounded like this.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Action Plan

           Sat 24 September 2004           @ Bull and Gate

Jerky punk with soaring anthemic melodies.

Don't be fooled by the British Sea Power feel of the fatigues, Action Plan are a class act. The high vocal SCREAMS with the torture of Robert Smith and Tom Verlaine, but strikes directly at the tune-spot. Vocal also chops out rhythm guitar, but the lead guitar demands extra attention. Awesome pedally squalls, plucked rock'n'roll cycles, soaring solos from the Edge, Bauhaus spook flourishes. The two guitars spar to spark off massive orchestral harmonics. The force behind is a speeding power-bass thump and a firmly twisted drum beat.

The material involves neatly concluded 3-minute songs, each accelerating to a fitful crescendo. Too absorbed to note lyrics, I jotted "You've lost the wonder in your eyes" and "Love knows no rules: I don't know where love comes from". Action Plan capture the harsh intensity of New Order's Movement and the wayward grooves of Television and Sonic Youth.

OppositionT exists because bands like Action Plan exist. In 2004 it doesn't get much more exciting than an out-of-the-box punk act happy to draw on 25 years' of creating gnarly pop songs by subverting the rock'n'roll genre. Action Plan have a captivating otherness. As sweet and sinewy as sugar cane.

                                                                                 Author: WT

Active-M

            Wed 2 November 2005 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar

Poptastic bubblegum rock 'n' roll.

A-M music is about close three-part harmonies - two parts male and one part female. What are their harmonic pronouncements? 'Skeleton designs' and 'I just want a face that fits' feature. Two guitars generate chiming and feathering chords, and simple repeating jangle hooks. Add pogoing bass tunes, catchy psychedelic grooves, clean high school rock 'n' roll beats, and you're at the prom.

Active-M form a bridge between Ash, The Verve, The Las and Teenage Fanclub. A few bands have been vibrating local souls with these sounds for a while, notably Samurai Seven. Sooner rather than later, melodic guitar pop is going to be the sound of now, and Active -M will be ready. Are they infectious? They're catchier than the plague.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Agent Flux

               Fri 30 April 2004           @ Hope and Anchor

Punk grind that is amateur, thrilling and loveable.

The sound of Joy Division fronted by Richard Hell. This feels like real punk rock, the way it used to be. It's not about knowing how to play, it's about knowing how to INVENT. If anything is by the book, they've been following an obscure Ian Curtis manual "how to play rock music really badly and become legendary just the same". And this band actually does have "buzzsawing" guitar, an expression Time Out applies constantly to a whole host of bands who'd never make the timberyard. Initially, there are measured guitar cycles of 3 or 4 notes, but this progresses into fantastic staccato disconcordance. The bass is a low melodic depth-plumbing driver. Drums are part metronomic ticker and part deadened bass limp. The vocal is marvellously dry and flat, and I could throw choice lyrics into the review for pages. A beautiful mix of cold angst and trashy rock 'n' roll. Here goes. "I pray you're gonna stay around… 'cos I got nothing for you". "You can take your chances… and feel the loneliness". You're taking me down to the wire". "I won't be projected on you". "I've been smashed and burned". "A crime betrays me". Do you need any more? This has all the fantastical creativity of people playing in a front room or a basement FOR THEMSELVES.  Simple line up of vocals, guitar, bass, drums.

Awesome DIY music virtually non-existent since 1977. It's technically crap, and therein lies its charm - at the start so were Sex Pistols, Damned and Joy Division themselves. Agent Flux state flatly "I don't know what it is, but it's here". It's dirty, and you WANT it.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Akira

             Mon 25 August 2003             @ Bull and Gate

Monikered after the classic Japanese animation, and with a grandeur fit for the name. Post-rock 3-piece with a feeling of restrained anger and power.

Tracks built on the relentless wall-of-sound stylings trademarked by Bob Mould's Sugar, or framed as angsty emo soundscapes. Bass-driven melodies to rival New Order's Ceremony and instrumentals in a Mogwai vein with oodles of guitar and bass feedback. All done by your personnel of lead vocal/ bass; guitar/ backing vocal; and drums.

Mighty fine mix of the awkward and the accessible. Could take post-rock to the masses.

                                                                                 Author: OT


Akira

             Wed 10 August 2005 Akira/ Smalltown America Records presents @ Catch 22

An anxiety attack over grudgingly catchy tunes.

Akira are a three-piece with both frontmen pitching in vocals. Desperation contorts the tunes at times, but the response is deftly soaring croons and falsetto that squeaks with concern. "Do you see what it means?", they demand. Guitar lines buzz, curl and zap, floating off into liberated freeform solos. Bass output is a gently stroked series of sonic nudges, so low down they're almost subliminal. Drums are stilted to the max, toppy waltzers, strangely reverby and disembodied. As with manga animation, Akira are about leading not following, and the only comparable act I can offer is US post-rockers Ten Grand.

Akira bludgeon and spike their sounds, but there's an oblique and thinly veiled tunesmithery to be found. The reluctance to quite accept the joy of the melody makes me think of Belle and Sebastian. A measured aural painting where the colours bleed over the edges, its attractive because it doesn't ignore the boundaries, and fresh because it doesn't adhere to them. Pop-art never stretched it this far. Ignore it, and you've not got what I got. You're rotting. You're rotting.

                                                                               Author: RMC

The Alaskan Pipeline

             Thu 19 January 2006            @ Bull and Gate

Busy rock-lite, pompous and atmospheric.

No surprises to be had here. Voice is light melodic and moany. From a semi-acoustic guitar and 2 electric guitars you get jangling twangs, needlework tunes awash with sustain, interwoven curls, lines of needling and shimmering. Bass is a creature of throbbing simplicity while drums tumble gently through slightly stilited beats. The bleak lyricism reminds me of Morrissey at times: "You wore me out, you broke me down" and "Hibernation comes too soon". You know what The Alaskan Pipe think of themselves and their audience when they're coming to the end of their set: "this is the penultimate song - there's one more after this".

The Alaskan Pipeline play music that sounds like jingle bells, its soft-focus personal observations. The world doesn't need another imitation of Athlete, Coldplay, Talk Talk and U2. These guys think so much of themselves they bring their own sound engineer, who proceeds to flood out the PA and turn the layering into indistinct mud. When they pretentiously suggest "All I ask is that you start to live", I can't help but think <right back at you kids>.  There's a special place for the Alaskan Pipe - where the hate has no name.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Alf-alpha

              Wed 21 April 2004 Club Fandango @ Archway Tavern

Quirky pop-edged new wave rock 'n' roll from the Birmingham Four (not to be confused with the Six).

This is headed up by a white-soul wail of a voice to rival Joe Jackson or Graham Parker. In this acoustically challenged environment, lyrics are indiscernable, which is sad, because there seems to be a welter of wry lovelorn lines. The lead guitar picks around warmly like Nick Lowe, and the bass bounds around to produce neat one- or two-bar melodies. Pre-programmed synth delivers understated Hammond sounds. And the snare-obsessed drumming pretty much drowns out the lot. Set up is lead vocals/ rhythm guitar, bass/ backing vocals, lead guitar/ backing vocals, drums.

There are fine tunes and impressive musicianship on show here, but they desperately need greater sophistication in the drum souind and to make sure the drawled faux American vocal doesn't subvert the lyrical content. We'll have to wait is see how they turn up next. Don't you know that it's different for Brummies?

                                                                                 Author: OT

All Dark Mornings

             Thu 5 October 2006             @ Bull and Gate

A one-man one-song show of angsty vocal, guitar layering and electronic noise.

ADM sings in Cobain despair, heartbroken sighs, dripping in reverb. The words get steadily more clever and miserable: "There's nothing here, she said, but you'll always remember me"; and "Drawn like a faceless scream". ADM lives in the world of forever The Cure of 1981.

Initially, this is entirely guitar-based. Deep chimes, thrumming, bright twangs. The sounds are set up in loops and layers, an undercurrent of seething backwards-chews and a steady build-up of additional blues curls: ADM can leave it all to play while he moves to production of synth-generated noise. Chirrups and bleeps join melancholy repeats in a keyboard-oboe voice. Subterranean organ booms give way to virtual choral sighs, whispering maidens, and lapping oceans. Atmospheric church organ ba[c]chanalia is blown away by a rave explosion. The rave in turn breaks as a harsh ambience of static, chews, and whooshes closes the set.

From All Dark Mornings, you get a one-man display of emo, blues and rave that's intriguing and entertaining for the full thirty minutes. It's almost impossible to stuff this one into a genre-box, there's such an array of spliffertronics and instrumental pneumatics. It's equally difficult to know what he'll do next, presumably he can't repeat the same one-song set more than a handful of times. Wait for the new set with hope and trepidation.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Angels Fight The City

             Fri 14 October 2005             @ Bull and Gate

Magical punk'n'roll'n'rockabilly teensurf vamp everything.

I love this band. The male-female front partnership, it's a marriage of Biafra and Grogan, vocals chanted, sneered and schoolgirled. Gorgeous guitar, scratch noise and feedback, spiralling chord sequences, slides and fiddles with a plastic bottle. Groove is paramount, wholly encompassed by the bass forcefield. Gallows humour in every line, and the drummer's stilted beats command that you strain and jerk as you fall. There's gold in them daft lyrics: "Don't fuck around with love, you know"; "Baby you're a psycho"; and "It's what you always wanted anyway". There are sounds together here that could come from the Rezillos, The Pixies and Sonic Youth.

Angels Fight The City are blessed with the ability to craft indie-pop perfectly. They can take the vibe and subdued hooks of "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and turn it into the bright wryness of "I'm glad that I feel good inside". They can even craft their own brand of psycho-poppabilly. How could you not adore a band that inspires the heckle "I don't believe in God but I believe in Angels"? This played between last night's John Peel posters, smiling slightly as if appreciating the band. Calling all avenging angels, kick-ass angels. This punter's gone to heaven.

                                                                                  Author: RF


Angels Fight The City

             Fri 20 February 2004            @ Bull and Gate

Engaging garage-punk sophisticates.

Although the opening is worryingly sub-White Stripes, these guys quickly produce a pronounced end-of-the-70s stamp. The bass plugs away at serious serious melodies. Guitar does scratchy flash-reggae chords and the spiky punk-lines of iconic rebels like Patrick Fitzgerald. Plus hard squalling that jigsaws into the bass groove in the style of the Stranglers, or more recently Corrigan. Keyboards add more of a feel than an active component, complementing a charming and flatly diffident female vocal. Lyrically, we are in the company of those with Higher Education. "The same sensation with different faces" is the reductionist account of sex, and "Jerusalem" gets a rock makeover (whether based on Blake or the Israel-Palestine conflict is not clear). Potential roots behind this are endless - Police, Spear of Destiny, Department S?  Set-up is male lead vocal/ guitar, female vocal/ keyboards/ tambourine, bass/ male backing vocal, drums.

Angels Fight The City are hard to define, lo-fi for sure, complex for sure, clever-clever for sure, 70s punk attitude for sure. Neat, neat, neat.

                                                                                 Author: OT

The Archers

            Wed 8 December 2004            @ Bull and Gate

Bright and energetic guitar-fuelled pop music.

The guitarists share vocal duties, diligently weaving sweet boy-next-door tunes and harmonies. The twin guitars are nothing short of lavish, a layer of anthemic strumming, drizzling and plaintive picking, bursts of crunch collision chords, complex waterfalls, busy wagon wheels, chortling jangles and syrupy solos. Bass is the master of the wild roving melody. Drums batter their way through a rollicking cymbal and snare race. And the lyrics are madder than the average hatter: "Today's the day she feels but never shows"; "And there is no sky", plus "I swapped my DNA with a pair of reptiles". The Archers close with a slightly shambolic encore of the Beatles' "Hey Bulldog". The stuff of honest fun-infused story-telling, Lloyd Cole meets the Bluebells and the Bluetones.

The Archers sound is both catchy and intricate, fun and thoughtful, pop-drenched and musically articulate. Not a radio broadcaster's mike or a manure heap anywhere in sight. Happiness is a warm bow, mama.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Archie Bronson Outfit

             Thu 30 October 2003 Club Fandango @ Bull and Gate

Ace 3-piece garage blues band.

Spartan simplicity at the start soon gives way to a heavy blues-rock onslaught. Three people have no right to create such a full sound, but the meaty first vocal, the awesome guitar swagger, energetic bass, and beat-tastic use of a tiny drumkit could blow your average 5-piece off-stage. Lyrically, some of the lines seems basic - "you can do what you want" - but the game is raised with bluesier references like "blood-hate". Set-up is first vocal/ guitar, bass/ second vocal, drums, plastic illuminated goose (Swan Light).

You don't need to be a big garage fan to be gripped by the true greatness of Archie Bronson Outfit - photogenic they ain't, but even in these fickle times, they must be destined for greatness. Archie Bronson Outfit are hi-intensity lo-fi - your new favourite harmonic generator.

                                                                                 Author: OT

The Arm

              Fri 3 March 2006 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage

An industrial bag of grind, groove and jazz, fresh from the factories of the West Midlands.

Drums come tumbling, bass tunes throb and pulse. These beats are fallen mountain-climbers, they scramble from foothills to scree, grapple almost to the peak, then just one slip: collisions, intense high-speed rumbles, unstoppable descent, unavoidable chasm. Synth splurges, a laptop Mac, Punch and Judy samples, spaceage probing and whistles, clanger whooping conversation, Dalek extermination rays. Guitar and bass jam a groove like they're in Hawkwind, but guitar breaks out for cat-scratching, wolf-whistling, horseplay of the crazy kind, winding machines of the coiled-wire grind. This is nuts. And bolts.

If this is your bag, you will know instantly. The Arm set out on an instrumental helter-skelter, spiralling to a plie-up of bodies, then a sudden halt. Abrupt. The Arm set clangs and splinters like a wordless alliance of Beefheart and Public Image Limited, the Flowers of Romance. In the post-rock world, it’s the music of Cat on Form jazzed-up by Kyote. But the set is so short, it leaves you desperate for more. This is not an arm, it's an army.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Armchair Multitude

            Mon 10 November 2003       @ Hope and Anchor

Fine indie musicians play pop-rock.

A vocalist of warmth and clarity to match Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook, although without Squeeze's kitchen-sink lyrical drama. Many songs are balladic introspection and musing on relationships with the hallmark of the Bluetones, although they haven't quite mastered the two-and-a-half minute pop classic of Bluetonic. There is a wonderfully wide-eyed self and world interrogation about this. The interplay of acoustic and electric guitar is engaging, with brief blues and country solos occasionally bringing Lynard Skynard to mind. The keyboard piano is impressive too, spanning many octaves [no large organ jokes please - ed]. Lyrical themes include fallibility ("I Fall Down" and "Circle") and joy ("Cloud 79"). Some of it does almost inhabit the world of cheese - "I won't walk away unless your demon's in my way; I won't walk away, so let your demons fly away". But some of it's a bit more self-aware - "If you grew up in the same way you wouldn't have to teach us" (loadsa possible meanings there). Whatever, it's all delivered with infectious delight. The set-up is: vocal/ semi-acoustic guitar/ keyboard; lead guitar; bass; drums.

Armchair Multitude represents the very best and most articulate pop music you will find being played in a pub. Label with love.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Art Brut

              Tue 27 April 2004 Glasswerk @ Upstairs at The Garage

Joyous 5-piece garage punks.

Time Out has "Art Punks" - did they say the Sex Pistols were art? This is unashamed rock 'n' roll. That'll be why "rock 'n' roll" is mentioned in almost every song. Like "My little brother's just discovered rock 'n' roll" (not jazz then?). The vocal rant is part poetry, part anthem: a little bit Mark E Smith, a little bit Johnny Rotten, a little bit Beastie Boys. Backing vocals are marginally off-key sneers in the "oooh, oooh" and "the girl can't help it" vein. Guitars mix the wonderful raunch of the Stooges with the easy progression of Ramones 3-chord pop. Speed thumping simple bass lines and stand-up frenetic orange box drums complete the picture. OK, lyrically, they do go a bit art-house - talking about "Popular culture, no longer a blasphemy", and a song ostensibly about entertaining terrorists (did they have Gaddafi round for tea then, or just Blair?). But moments could be the soundtrack from 'Grease' - "Girls don't like him, boys wanna fight him". Primarily, this sounds like the Sex Pistols and The Damned, with maybe a touch of Sonic Youth savvy. Set up is lead vocal, first guitar/ backing vocal, second guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums.

Demented not-quite-top-of-the-pops entertainment as pioneered by the Rezillos. Popular punk as it was 70s/ 80s, before it got into teenagers cacking themselves on aeroplanes whilst chatting-up hostesses. But is it funny twice? Like the Damned song "Another case of hit or miss". Could be pink grease. Could be wink, sneeze.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Attack Switch Attack

             Mon 4 October 2004             @ Bull and Gate

Twisted and dark lyrical indie guitarmeisters.

A wayward vocal cry veers around a melody to deliver dense Manics lyricism - "The hyperbole, you see right through it"; "You mustn't follow me so blindly"; and (sarcastically?) "He knows too much and he's well read - and wanted by the MI5". The singer's guitar draws on wildly varied indie classics - the wonderfully mismatched chopping time of ex-Strangler Hugh Cornwell (on "Oh! Rats" of all possible titles), the ringing of high-noon in a Theatre of Hate west-world ghost-suburb, flippy-floppy jangle chords, stroked-up thrumming like the gentle grunt of an overfed bear. Big bass-bellows drive a sound-system float around a bent-up hooky tune. Drums New Order themselves into a cycle that trickles and lurches with compulsion. The sound of Attack Switch Attack straddles the legacy of ancient New Order (Movement), REM (Life's Rich Pageant), Husker Du (Candy Apple Gray) and Manics (The Holy Bible).

Attack Switch Attack are art-shockers perched on the cusp of indie-pop and agit-punk. The ground that the Manics and Husker Du have left fallow has now been invaded with aplomb. A PC pyrrhic victory. An Attack Switch Attack long-term gain.

                                                                                 Author: WT

Audible Thought

              Sat 26 June 2004              @ Bull and Gate

The thinking person's rock n roll.

Unassumming melodic vocal. Fantastic guitar, focussed on dirty minor keys, produces fresh-picked Postcard Records bouquets, staccato strumming, soft acoustic chords, and taut Stranglers axe-chopping. Bass slaps and bubbles. Drum can be a punchy cymbal and snare or trickling jazzy beat. Lyrics are nothing if not thoughtful - "Information's running riot"; "We know what that means - we know something different"; "Staring at my reflection - staring at the Sun". Some neat oppositions too - "Ice: Fire" and "Your stock's in your share: your share in your stocks". Layout is: vocal/ electric guitar/ 12-string semi-acoustic; electric guitar/ 6-string semi-acoustic/ 5-string bass; drums.

Audible Thought combine brainwaves with Stiff Records new wave. Moments of Pulp picture-painting and Del Amitri balladry. Sounds broadly like Elvis Costello fronting REM (pre- Losing My Religion, naturally). Compelling.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Audioreader

            Thu 11 November 2004           @ Bull and Gate

Consummate layered indie-rock with genuine gravitas.

Musicianship hand-in-hand with edginess and originality. Lead vocal is the strained melody of mild torture - think New Order's Bernard Sumner. The flightiness is countered by a weightier wailing back-up harmony, interjected at intervals. Bass is a pounding trailblazer of lollops and meanders. Drums are neatly syncopated, firing on all cylinders and thrashing none. Three guitars are the key to the layering. Semi-acoustic is the master of the ultra-fast steel chord. Electrics produce jangle and sustain musing, classical perorations, atmospheric cycling and crunching, sustained flights of dragonfly and seagull, plus minor key lines of scouring, scribbling and screaming. Lyrics that I managed to jot down were nicely dour: "You never asked me why, and I never said"; and, apparently "Just nail me to the background, you know nothing changes in the end". The stratigraphy reminds me of the Waterboys and Radiohead, but the songs are angsty, direct and pretension free.

The Audioreader sound is intelligent indie, a refreshed prog-rock that sticks to the point and embellishes it, makes a statement that we feel we should know about. Bass and drum drive with a light touch, vocal ponders quietly and earnestly, and the guitars create an ocean of swells, wavelets and surfers. Immerse yourself. Smile, it may take a while, but it's better than being nailed to the landscape.

                                                                               Author: RMC

The Beale

             Sat 12 August 2006 Guided Missile @ Buffalo Bar

Adrian R Teenbeat's exercise in the dark and grotesque.

Teenbeat now sports a rough-beard to accompany his rambling monologue of drones, moans, growls and rants. He delivers his sermon in darkness as attention is drawn to film and slideshow images, strange adventures in a Yorkshire landscape with unlikely captions and placards - 'Dracula lands at Whitby'. A mature fatherly gentleman appears with the label 'FUCK'. An elderly woman carries the sign 'Everyone enjoys sexual intercourse'.

Music is driven by synth beats, harsh and rattling, with mini-keyboard's bleeps, slices and squiggles. Guitar rasps along with bass hooks that sprint, pulse and grunt. This experience is not intended to be easy on the ear but it has a compelling intensity.

The Beale are reliably disconcerting. It's almost as if you were watching an early Fall show with guest vocals by a creature built from Shane McGowan, Frank Sidebottom and The Rebel (Country Teasers). Remember the meths-drinking tramp that used to collect pennies behind Marks & Spencer's for his grunts and squealing mouth-organ? Now he's in a rock band.

                                                                                  Author: RF

The Beale

             Sat 16 August 2003 Guided Missile @ Buffalo Bar

Adrian R Teenbeat's vehicle for psychotic ranting surrounded by some of the best off-the-wall musicians around.

A bizarre videoclip accompanies, in which Barbie-doll Stormtroopers oversee a ritual Barbie sacrifice, and are in turn overseen by a baby Buddha. The Fall-like sound of churning bass, rumbling guitar and persussive casiotone keyboards (remember Mark Riley?) create a punky dance sound that is the perfect backdrop for Teenbeat. The lyrics are stoically downbeat complaints: "Some people call me a fucking cunt". OT shares that burden.

Forget looking for art in a gallery. This is catchy anti-pop art strictly for a bar.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Bifteck

           Sat 18 September 2004           @ Dublin Castle

Mod-punk colliding with blues-rock to produce bittersweet anthems.

The three most memorable things about Bifteck are the singer's smooth but tortured melodies, the angry disappointment of the lyrics, and the massive overarching rock riffology. Frenetic guitar strumming is combined with the lead vocalist's declarations of faith and lack of faith. His foil a lead guitar man producing swooping wails, superspeed Thin Lizzy licks, deftly choked-off disco-riffs and choppy flavours of reggae and flamenco - not to forget fine vocal harmonies and responses. All this is backed by ferocious bass and drum explosions.

The material here is mostly familiar from earlier sets, but there seems to be an extra injection of fuel with each performance. A new song, Parody, starts like a slow Lynard Skynard anthem and accelerates into a sizzling stomp. There's the classic "Good Bloke Seamus", with its fresh-from-the-gutter opener "I recognise that smell because I know it well"; this comes complete with its twin bongo-based instrumental, infused with a guitar funk to match The Jam's "Precious". Other set highlights are the pacey anthem "We'll find our way, never give in to this" (Any Other Business), tortured blues building from "To love is to lie, stop wasting my time" (Succeed to Deceive) and choppy emo "I'm an aetheist who yearns for eternal life" (Lack of Faith). Add it up, and Bifteck have a blistering take on the blues-funk-punk combination espoused by Paul Weller at the end of the 1970s.

There's no shortage of powerful blues-rock around (apparently there's a European Union stockpile). Bifteck hold the 3 trump cards of honest intelligent songwriting, nuclear energy, and instantly catchy hooks. Bifteck are master craftsmen of punky blues. You can keep watching the telly and thinking 'bout your holidays; this amateur band plays in a nearby bar, and that's real entertainment.

                                                                                 Author: WT


Bifteck

              Sat 12 March 2005 Fresh Rock Showcase @ Mean Fiddler

An encapsulation of mod cheek and punk anger into consummate blues rock passion.

The singer is almost painfully earnest in his adherence to the melody, but there are plenty of endlessly stretched notes for you rockers, and some cleverly placed high harmonies and responses sung by the lead guitar man. As guitarists, these two mesh brilliantly, around a core of chords that crunch rocks and riffs that spiral. Add on classic Gary Moore high chortles and wails, broken chugs, solos of sustained pirouetting, bluesy mastications, cod reggae staccato strums and funky squeaks and cackles. The bass thumps out a weaving 38 tonne juggernaut of a tune. Drums are showy, steady cymbal blasting set against rockadelic tumbles and rolls. For Bifteck, every single line tells a story, and the audience joins in the narrative: "You can see all the colours of my world, if I changed the way I looked at yours"; "No more tears, and no more turning back"; "Life's a parody"; "As I stood there alone in a crowded church" (eh?); "I'm an atheist who yearns for eternal life, not God, or figurehead, just continual life"; "I see through those eyes into that filthy mind"; and "I recognise that face, it's uglier than mine". Bifteck open like the Rolling Stones, but the Stones haven't been this personal and intimate for many years. It's a course charted between the opulent rock recreationism of Oasis and the openness and musicianship of the Bluetones.

No toying with fashion for Bifteck, they've nailed their colours to the bues-rock mast, and they play it with more passion than anyone else. Fantastic lead guitar playfulness, and incredibly honest and direct lyrical contemplation. This is the acme of contemporary rock music. Bifteck are a band with a wealth of talent and a taste for stardom.

                                                                               Author: RMC


Bifteck

              Sat 24 April 2004               @ Bull and Gate

Forceful 4 piece producing emotionally-charged punk and blues with mod hues.

Vocals are a clear melodic Sarf London blues. Guitar produces rocktastic AC/DC solos, wedges of Gary Moore soul cheese, flashy disco swatches and even swanky reggae skank. The passionate drummer gives every drum in the kit a good pasting (groan). And the bass is in for a severely funky pounding. Lyrically, there's a bit of social observation and some painfully earnest lessons in love. The seemingly cutting "I recognise that smell because I know him well" turns around to describe "Good bloke Seamus". There's extreme loneliness in "I'm feeling it now, silence so loud", and "Obsession with fiction is bringing me down… and I'm tired of waiting for you to come around". And there's uncontrolled bitterness in "You take all my pride… don't help me to confide… to love is to lie… stop wasting my time". A fantastic mix of Britpoppiness and psychy MC5 blues.  Set-up is lead vocal/ rhythm guitar/ tom-tom, lead guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums/ backing vocal.

Song-writing genius, and an impressive mix of the anthemic and the soulful. The only time we feel this alright is by your side.

                                                                                 Author: OT

The Big Fibbers

               Sat 6 May 2006    UK Antifolk @ 12 Bar Club

Singalong fun for the whole family, with barely concealed innuendo - is Crackerjack still going?

Two blokes sing, guitar, toot on the birdcall whistle, and generally jape a merry jest. This is challenge-free good natured busking, nothing new about it. "She's got wonderful big boots!", they compliment - oh yeah, guffaw. The tradition of including a little jocularity in the set spans may years and acts - Lonnie Donegan, Roy Harper, Deep Purple, Chuck Berry, Stranglers, Pulp - but the Big Fibbers are out to break it down to the lowest common denominator, ha'penny music hall.

There was Mungo Jerry. There was the Scaffold. There were the Monks (Nice Legs, Shame about the Face). We have amnesia about the next 25 years, but now we have the Big Fibbers, so it's ok - evidently nothing important happened. By now it's midnight, so the acts don't need to stand up to critical scrutiny. "You only say you love me when you're drunk - so drink! drink! drink!", cry the Big Fibbers. So we gave Mr Fibber's wife some medicinal compound, most efficacious in every case.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Bilge Pump

            Sun 13 November 2005 VF Loud Alldayer with Silver Rocket, Noisestar and Monotreme Records @ Bull and Gate

Feel: mechanical, with shearing bolts.

Vocal: wild cries, gargling with soup, singing against the tide.
Guitar: Jack White and the strangled cat.
Bass: a fur-covered mallet.
Drums: steel fists, derailed train trips, pudding basins.
Extras: I'm sure there's a Casio VL1 lost in there somewhere.
Lyrics: traded slogans and asides.
Popstar factor: 99%, I'd do 'em all at the same time.
Familiarity factor: 50%, I've seen 'em before, don't really remember the songs, but I get the drift.
Song count: normal (about 16 per hour).
Longevity: timeless, like jazz.
IT factor: 10%, no beards, limited head-banging potential.

Antecedents: Jimi Hendrix Experience, Ten Grand, TEAM, Wire.
Quotable quotes: "You make me feel I've got my head screwed on", "Throw my things away".
Remark: ridiculously over-amplified Voodoo Children.

                                                                                  Author: RF


Bilge Pump

             Fri 3 December 2004 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage

Jerky power blues and jazz twisters.

The Bilge of the moniker may be the bizarrely esoteric lyrics: "Don't forget my vested interest"; "I want to end this struggle"; "These are my future wives waiting in the wings"; "What you may want… what you may not… what's your name?". The singer manages to be simultaneously angry and breezily melodic, poetry veering between speech and song.

Or possibly the maverick guitar styles qualify as Bilge. Lines that bark and guffaw wildly. Blues wails, perambulating screeches, high squealing birdsong and short chiming hooks.

Then there are the two contenders for the role of Pump. The singer's bass guitar belts through short sludgy tunes. The drummer addresses the whole kit in creating crazy jazz atmospherics and Creatures-grade tribal passages.

There are moments of prog-rock indulgence, but most of the set is gnarly blues pop caught in a high-speed car crash. At its worst, shades of ELP, at the best echoes of Captain Beefheart.

Bilge Pump are a wonderful dappled cross-breed of catchy blues simplicity and wild jazz-powered mayhem. The subsequent performers rename them Bulge Pimp; but the sounds on offer are loud rather than fat, and stripped down rather than forced into skimpy clothes. Each song has a lot of noises crammed into it, but all cover the whole mile in four minutes. Fundamentally, Bilge Pump play post-rock, but the brevity, the blues and the melody lend a refreshing directness. Why, here's the boys with the chainsaw.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Black Black

            Fri 16 December 2005 Silver Rocket - Noisestar @ Buffalo Bar

Ethereal grooves.

Black Black exist just on the right side of the line between uplifting brightness and miserable grime. Beats are light, trippy rug-cutters. Bass generates romping tunes and Spiritualized throbbing. Two guitars mix-up jangly tootling, reverby frilling, and hooky needle-picking, all of it awkward. Two male singers contrast the smooth and the warbled, the grounded against the dreamy, Bryan Ferry against the Belle and Sebastian. Words mean everything to them, but little to anyone else: "Getting faster and faster", "What the hell are you gonna do?" and "Yeah, a possibility grows". A curious proposition.

Black Black is the shade of unexpected pleasures. Churning Velvet Underground, spiky Josef K, Joy Division in thrumming Transmission and wistful Ceremony. Gently drifting, but drawing ever closer to the jaws an oil-terminal, Black Black are darkly irresistible.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Black Kube

            Fri 19 September 2003           @ Bull and Gate

Heavy alterno-rock 5-piece dicatating their own review: "We're Creed meets Bon Jovi".

The feel is quite punky, but the posture and riffology is classic heavy metal. Titles like "Kerosene" ignite the idea of a punk-metal crossover. Sub-Jagger vocals vie with AC/DC guitars, wide-boy bass, and a drum-ethos of "hit EVERYTHING maniacally fast". The singer sports perfectly ruffled blond highlights, and complains about The Guardian calling him Mark Owen. Wonder why?

Although the pomposity is almost turned up to Spinal Tap 11, in the context the clichés are good fun. The final impression is that the Black Kube sound is situated between the Stooges and the Foo Fighters. See it for pure entertainment value. Don't try to take it too seriously.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Black Madonnas

            Sat 13 December 2003 Guided Missile @ Bull and Gate

Storming psych-garage rock.

Evil stooges bass delivers wide-ranging melodies, guitar produces squalls and strangled-cat sounds. All is backed by insistent native Indian drumming and fronted by seriously bluesy Zep vocals. Lyrically, this is heading directly up your alley - the fear of a lover's husband gives us "Let's get this clear, I'm gonna get the fuck out of here - he knows my name". To be followed by an unbelievably cool cover of "Ain't nothing going on but the rent". The feel of this is somewhere between the White Stripes and the Stone Roses, but at the close of the set it's stretching into a neat krautrock workout. Still, I can't quite get my head around a frontman with a ginger moustache. Set-up is: subdued first vocal/ guitar, out-there blues second vocal/ star guitar, bass, drums.

High quality low fidelity. Black Madonnas can take you to the promised land.

                                                                                 Author: OT

The Blacklines

              Sat 31 July 2004               @ Bull and Gate

Supreme punk metal.

The Blacklines' singer is an earnest Dave Grohl, a master of resilience under torture. Guitar-core involves questing chords and niggling solos, but - with the fuzz and reverb of a thousand pedals - there's also glam spangle, grunge intensity and space-rock wailing. Occasional keyboards soar spookily into the stratosphere. Bass is a big big beautiful throb. Drum is a skilfully controlled explosion.

The Blacklines invest real passion in their songs. "When everything's misplaced, serving the human race"; "I know you're fucking dreaming, dreaming is for fools"; and "We hear another story of someone else's glory we know we'll never find" (these last two from their small-town blues "Evacuate Now"). Shades of Sugar, The Pixies, The Cure, Foo Fighters, even Tears for Fears. Players are bass; vocal/ guitar; guitar/ keyboards; drums.

Just as OT discovers them, The Blacklines are on the verge of 6 months' hibernation. Typical luck. The Blacklines are the fantastic conclusion of 28 years of punk, new wave, indie, alt-rock, grunge, nu-metal. Thinking inside the box, but the very best thought in the box. The Blacklines burn like a fire in Cairo.

                                                                                 Author: WT

Steve Bland

              Wed 25 April 2007  Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar

Steve's multi-faceted band turns everyday occurences and instant pop songs into lavishly arranged musical productions.

At its simplest, the show involves Steve's jerky semi-acoustic strumming carried aloft on a gently bubbling bass groove. At its most lavish, jazz, cabaret and country-waltzes are driven by clackety beats and creeping bass hooks, then embellished by everything from ragtime piano to squeeky accordian and sax chorus lines.

As varied as the styles and instrumentation are, Steve's show is constantly upbeat. Tempo never drops below a trot or a skiffle, and wordplay is gently reflective, silly, or downright jolly. Chorus lines 'Keep your hands dry for high fives' and 'I love my iPod' are typical, but moments of worry do sneak through - 'I'm yearning, but you're leaving - I'm not learning, but you're not teasing'.

Steve plays a set that's big on arrangements, but the feel remains intimate and personal. The multiplicity of instruments serve to reinforce the established hooks and underline the catchy pop sensibility. But the songs are bigger than hooks, they're tales from the life and times of a young entertainer. All around are whispers of Ben Folds Five, but there are also echoes of songwriting talents from Neil Hannon to Paul Heaton and Elvis Costello. And Steve makes all this look easy.

If you thought you didn't like consciously decorous pop music, think again for Steve Bland's outfit. They close the set (prior to a brief 2-man encore) with contorted jazz mayhem, and there's nothing contrived about it, they're just having a blast. Great music, witty banter, entertaining songs, and it all comes naturally. Top quality.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Bluestate

               Fri 25 June 2004                 @ Water Rats

Warm atmospheric miserablism.

Vocal is diffident, accurate, unassuming, and boring. Guitar produce edge-free glowing jangle and sub-flamenco chord flourishes. Bass is a simple romp, but played-out double-time. Keyboards are bright even painting, but with ever-present sustain fx and the threat of minor chords. The drums just chatter away. Sound mixing and balancing in the venue is not good, but vocally, I think I picked out "Everyone seems to know that" and (inevitably) "Under a grey sky". It all sounds worryingly like Talk Talk. Players are lead vocal/ guitar, bass, key-synth/ guitar, drums.

Bluestate play songs that seem to dwell on lost love and the advance of the desert. Soporific. Gloomy.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Bob Cuba

             Tues 17 August 2004 @ Upstairs at The Garage

Bright punky pop with a heavy dose of melody, a slice of irony, and an elemental trace of danger.

Singer and guitarist Stuart is as chirpy as the boy next door, innocently singing too loud with the headphones on. Colin on drums effortlessly throws in 70s harmonies that reanimate memories of dozens of Chinn-Chapman songs (Sweet, Suzi Quatro and… erm Smokie). The guitaring covers a hell of a lot of ground, chords that rattle, scream and surf, proclaiming and chiming solos, a massive storm in a honey pot. John is the nuttiest Cuba, he weaves his bass into a funk, then throws in a bounding and controlling Cure melody and some uncharacteristically serious groove. Colin drums on, a rolling affair, a steadying touch, the whip-hand keeping that wagon train a-circlin'. But above all, Bob Cuba have SNAP! CRACKLE! And POP!

A brace of familiar love-songs from their Bounce 6-tracker. "Never let you go" (with a gorgeously silly vocal take on the syn-drum - "Boan") gives us the line "There are things that take a while to build up - things that are built to last". And "Prodigal" sweetly proclaims "You have touched me". Also from Bounce, there's light-hearted fist-waving at boy bands that reminds me of That Petrol Emotion in dance mode - "Karaoke Tribe". Then we get spacehopper-free material. "I'll be anything you want me to be" recalls the folksy joy of 80s popsters the Bluebells, whilst the deftly catchy "Remember your soap in the shower" unaccountably has me thinking of a Virgin phone advert featuring Wyclef. Perhaps the finest offering is the 60's Animals threat of "Million Eyes" with the hook "You didn't think of that".

That's another fine set they've got me into. "Are we having fun?" demands one of the Cuba's rhetorical hooks; they surely are, it's infectious, and there's no vaccine. Defiantly edgy and catchy guitar pop that enjoys its heritage and looks to its future. You HAVE to feel the beat.

                                                                                 Author: WT


Bob Cuba

            Wed 25 February 2004 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar

Punchy Scotpop from this trio.

BC deliver an A to Z of indie guitar music from 1978 to the present day, covering ground from The Associates to The Sundays and The Undertones (probably not Vibrators or Xray Spex). Frantic drums, bouncing bass, brightly anthemic vocals with a little semi-sweet harmony, plus guitar that squalls, blisters, jangles and reverbs with the feel of the moment. Lyrically, this is endearingly singalong. "I'll never leave you alone" (so sweet), "Shine a light" (sounds like Shang-a-Lang), and "Remember your soap in the shower" (bathroom-sink drama). The best sounds of the Buzzcocks, the Damned, Josef K, Orange Juice and the Smiths. Simply guitar/ vocal, bass/ backing vocal, drums/ backing vocal.

This is a wee bit off-beat, but nevertheless, perky enough melodies to get you pogoing in the shower. The time for BC is surely now. Franz Ferdinand should watch out, Bob Cuba could produce some fierce competition.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Bobby McGees

               Sat 6 May 2006    UK Antifolk @ 12 Bar Club

Tonight, the McGees set-up is three-clown skiffle.

As greasepaint victims with bright costumes, they treat you to banjos, double-bass and melodica. The joys of romps and eyebrow-plucking, playground tales, washboard beats. The McGees most loveable feature is the male-female vocal combination, quizzical Scots sandpaper versus innocent baby doll, with twee lyrical exchanges and echoes: "I've got no frineds, not one". But it's not only childlike subject matter, Star Wars, light sabres, and Jedi knights. There's childlike directness too: "Why don't you just fuck off and die". He really means "mine's a pint of heavy".

The McGees are always a joy to see, with their fistful of twisted lullabies. It's a bonus to see them step away from their schoolyard operetta: boy meets girl, falls in love, falls out, maybe makes up. All they need now is a lion tamer.

                                                                                  Author: RF

Bobby McGees

            Sun 13 February 2005 UK Antifolk 3 @ Buffalo Bar

A genuinely funny duo telling the story of a stop-start stop-start relationship with the aid of ukulele, banjo, guitar, xylophone, melodica and flute.

The Bobbies come from Glasgae via Brighton it would seem: he with the chewy sub-melodic musings, she with the beautiful baby doll romanticising. Ukulele and banjo are picked-at like the redneck instruments they purport to be, electric guitar rocks'n'rolls, the flute butterflies like the eponymous theme tune, xylophone tinkles, and melodica wheezes.

And so, to the opera. The nervousness before the meeting: "I've got no friends, not one". The head over heals phase: "Our love is indestructable, totally watertight, uncorruptable". Trying to recapture the good times: "Tomorrow could be like yesterday and tie us up in knots again". The dreamy lullaby credited to Presley: "Forever and a day". Uncertainty over a partner's continued dedication (proclaimed also to have an undercurrent of Czechoslovakian politics): "I'm still getting butterflies, I'm sure she's not getting butterflies". Desperation phase: staccato repeats of "Please don't dump me" paired with threats of vengeance: "I'll slit your throat and gouge out your eyes". The development of pure hatred: "You used to be a wanker and you're still the same, so kill yourself" - followed by a catalogue of favoured death rituals. And finally, the glimmer of hope from a weekend in Paris: "We'll pretend it was chic, just for a laugh, I'll be Sacha and you be Piaf… we'll be friends for a little while, happy again". The concept of the antifolk opera surely owes something to Attila and Otway's "Cheryl"; but this is less cheap and far more engaging.

I love the Bobby McGees. They are coy and extrovert at the same time; you similtaneously believe they are not quite sure about themselves or each other, but that they completely understand and trust each other (ergo, they are not having a relationship). They encore with a knockabout of VU and Nico's "Femme Fatale", which they claim as an Elton John cover. The Bobby McGees are the antifolk Sonny and Cher. And they're way more twee than the Picklemen. There must be fifty ways to kill your lover.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Rolan Bolan

             Sat 30 August 2003             @ Bull and Gate

Go in a sceptic and you will come out a convert.

Bolan and his hard-edged R&B band prove that the black man KNOWS how to sing the blues. It's difficult to believe the man is playing to such a modest crowd, but - despite a style that suggests a 21st century Presley - the man is engagingly humble himself. We're not talking trademark R&B. Yes, the sloppy funk bass is there, and the light touch up-and-down the fretboard guitar. But there's so much more. Reggae and rock n roll themes, amazing rhythmic twists from the drummer, and Bolan drawing on (but not labouring) Bolan senior's beautifully tremulous vocal. All the tick-list blues-rock components are present, but all provided by consummate musicians and without a single descent into cliché. Bolan also prevents the social and personal from seeming hackneyed - when he sings "Opportunities are changing in my lifetime", you believe he means it. The Rolan Bolan band make playing beautiful music look easier than a stroll to the corner shop. Spot on, and certainly more Robert Cray than T-Rex. Set-up is: Bolan on vocal/ guitar; guitar; bass; drums.

A must for any R&B fan, as it was understood in the seventies or as it's understood now. Rolan is just a lovely guy who enjoys playing his heart out for an intimate crowd. What a star!

                                                                                 Author: OT

Boog

             Tue 24 January 2006 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor

Tune-packed and folk-infused rock cabaret.

Everything about Boog-music seems jolly and likeable. The singer delivers a breezy story with ease and warmth. Guitars mix up tricksy frills and spirals with sweet bluesy licks and with slashes and kicks that could be gypsy or cossack. The funky bass pumps, nudges and creeps like a hunting cat. The drummer seem subtle and calm, running through tickles, shuffles and snaps - but there's nothing calm about the twisted stop-start tempos. You need to keep on your toes.

You wouldn't really expect serious soul-searching or geo-political analysis to accompany such music, and they don't. Lines like "you're a pothead", "I just gotta get out" and "you're my angel - my angel in black, you're my angel, and I want you back" put me off digging much further. They're only words.

I like music that surprises me, and Boog certainly succeed at that. Time is slowed, suspended, then reversed. For a big part of the set, you feel like a crusty traveller dodging some shotgun-wielding farmer, as the angered custodian stomps territorially around the bounds. I struggled to find any obvious contemporary reference points. Some of the the folksy cabaret pops up in the Mules and perhaps Zutons, but most of the styling belongs to the seventies, to Genesis, to 10cc, and the lighter side of Hawkwind. Boog are appealingly odd without being too challenging, but quite possibly far sillier than they realise. As Peter Gabriel was once heard to observe "Me, I'm just a lawn-mower, you can tell me by the way I walk".

                                                                                  Author: RF

Brains and Virgin

            Sun 13 February 2005 UK Antifolk 3 @ Buffalo Bar

Mad electric take on Dames Hinge and Bracket.

One partner performs primarily home-counties accented poetry, half music hall compere, half fairground barker. Add on kerchunk kerchunk synthesised rhumboid beats, embellished with mad dance squiggles, squishy scratching, plink-plonk tunes and sampled strings. Also sampled are the sounds of US Hawkishness: "outlaw Russia forever", air-raid sirens, cries of "ceasefire". Extraterrestrial conquest gets a look in too: "We are the superiors of the human race… We'll kidnap Jamie Oliver and atomise his brains" (someone beat you to it). Just to prove they're serious, there's an episode of supposedly jungle-drumming accompanied by madcap dancing around the audience to shouts of "Mumbo jumbo", the claim "I am a tower of attraction to women", and the chant "Get yer tits out, get 'em out" (the home counties has slipped into mockney by now). This sounds like the Flying Lizards perform Gilbert and Sullivan.

Brains and Virgin are twenty-first century vaudeville. Clever it may not be, but entertaining it is. Not every idea is original (or even inoffensive) - the sample of "You can't touch this" as a backdrop to the story of a street-drinking whiskey-sodden MC Hammer is pretty obvious. All the same, Brains and Virgin are crazy showmen, and you can't touch that.

                                                                               Author: RMC

The Brakes

            Tue 16 November 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor

Cool as fuck swampy blues rock.

The singer is oddly static, but has a voice like sand and gravel, and oozes understated blues directly from his pores. He's also the master of a fine chewy mouth organ wobble. Guitars mix up hard-edged chords with riffs that meander and shimmer. Insistent 2-bar tunes are the bass line-of-communication; punching with the rolls is the job of the drums. Lyrics are classic blues too: "It's not me"; "Your money doesn't mean a thing"; "You never look me straight in the eyes… you'll never make a fool out of me"; then finally "And when the Sun goes down you feel my pain". The Brakes sound is a remarkable mix of ZZ Top and Sonic Youth.

The power of the Brakes comes from the contrast between the bemused and effortless charcoal grill of the vocal and the wild rock'n'roll on-hot-coals of the music. It's almost as if the late Robert Palmer had performed with the Bad Seeds. Refreshingly, the songs deal with the hurt felt by a man instead of boasting about the pain casually inflicted by a man. The blues had a baby and they named it rock'n'roll. This is the sound of rock'n'roll making a break for the big city, with the whole blues of creation snapping at its heels.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Brenda

            Sun 5 November 2006            @ Bull and Gate

Bystander-friendly post-rock powered by blues drama and electro urgency.

Brenda open with nail-biting suspense that builds quickly into storming violence, a fair match for PJ Harvey's 'Mansize'. From there until the end of the set, it's a roller-coaster ride of anxiety and thundering acceleration, with a maelstrom of emotion in each of the five songs.

The vocal proceeds in cries and wails, Thom Yorke styling, lofty and perfectly tuned. The words are reverbed and looped into layers. He screams in sustained anguish - "Naturally we're trapped". The loop repeats "Alone, alone"; a layer echoes "Own, own". A distant voice sighs "Aaah".

The guitars are the busiest functions in the equation. Gentle frills, breathy loops, bridge-tickling, jangle-hooks, curls and chimes lose the fight against scratchy chords, revs, blustering rock-outs, squealing and strafing.

There's no relaxation in the rhythm section either, thwacking electro-beats work with tripping cracks, pings, throbs and ocean-sparkles from the drumkit. A 5-string bass adds deep but edgy nudges and string-stretching booms. Brenda's not offering a moment's peace.

Nothing is straightforward with Brenda. When you think you've got the measure, you're surprised by an ocean of juddering beats, an antsy blues introduction, and a jerky jazz number with vocal scatting. To describe the band as dynamic would be a gross understatement, these guys groove with everything they do, they just can't stop moving. The show closes with a mad whirl of guitar fx and a layered chorus of "oohs". When Brenda goes bump in the night, you want to be there.

                                                                                Author: Pops

Brigade

             Fri 28 January 2005             @ Bull and Gate

Inescapably infectious skate-metal with complexity and brainpower.

Two-boy vocal exchanges are melodic and joshingly angry. Magnificent guitars involve niggling hooky intros, bright ringing chords, spangly and scribbly solos, and some grinding dual onslaughts resembling an out-of-control concrete mixer. Speedy grunt-bass melodies climax in pure thunder. Deeply bassy percussion delivers explosive crunch-ups. And their signature seems to be accelerating to a rock-out at the end of each song. Lyrics appear reflective: "What does it feel like?"; "Taking apart all of the things that I know"; "I will not ask for answers, I will not tell a single soul"; and "You could take this all away". This is what Green Day would have sounded like ten years ago, with added Sugar to thicken the guitar grind, and a Placebo to up the angst level.

Brigade are a superb punk-metal outfit. After about 3 songs I just plain loved them. Punchy, urgent, playful and perfectly performed - but more important, a massive guitar mosh around. If Brigade don't become massive, it can only be down to seriously bad management or a seriously bum record deal. They're on their way.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Broken Summer Soundtrack

           Wed 24 November 2004           @ Bull and Gate

Dreamily pretty post-rock soundscapes.

One 15-minute progressive piece and a handful of vignettes from these sonic sculptors. The longer piece is a pair of growing and fading storms, each a brief squall rather than a hurricane. Guitars chime and nibbles, finally producing a jangling solo in the second crescendo. Insistent bass defines a fresh key every two bars. Percussion comprises deftly controlled drumming brought to a military climax, with intervals of xylophone tinkling in the introduction and the lull. In the shorter pieces, there are guitar juxtapositions between high capo jangling and gentle low melodies, plus reverby birdsong, passages of e-bow infinite sustain, bass rumbles, galloping drums, and clever percussive combinations like xylophone and sleighbells. There are no vocals.

The overall feel is of an extended Steve Hackett composition, or better, a proggy Cocteau Twins without Liz Fraser.

Broken Summer Soundtrack play music for musicians. It's evocative rather than direct and contemplative rather than exciting. The progressions are slow, but they hold your attention, and the combination of sounds - particularly guitars - is quite beautiful. Gods of Magog. Inspired.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Bugeye

              Wed 18 June 2003 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar

Furious female led post-punk in the manner of the Breeders without any of the balladry or calm.

The male drummer hides behind 3 guitarist girrrrls, who between them jump manically from tuneful purrs to raucous screams and dreamy sustain and pedal effects to wildfire finger-picking guitars. Scarily, the lead guitar crosses the Skids bagpipe sounds with the jangle pop of Josef K.

Female might is right.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Bugfly

           Wed 19 November 2003 Up All Night @ Buffalo Bar

Urgent femme fronted punks.

The obvious comparison is Hole, but English-as-foreign language and the deep sultry singing are reminiscent of Drugstore, and the occasional quirky judder-timing is pure PJ Harvey. There is a wonderfully coarse and open texture about the sound which allows the guitar's skittish strumming and sustain solos to shine through. Lyrically, this is personal and social observation, catchy enough for the song "Sign of my life" to stick with my from an earlier gig. There's a hint of sister-power here on the joy of male company: "You just bring me down".

Bugfly have healthy dose of the atmospheric blues-punk of Harvey and Nick Cave - Bad Seeds, but with the speed and curious everyday observational style of The Kinks. Melodic, but way off the beaten track.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Bullettrain

             Thu 12 August 2004         @ Hope and Anchor

Remarkably twenty-first century sleaze in a Stonesy rock 'n' roll 'n' blues work-out.

The vocalist has an exquisitely grimy blues bellow, and adds a classic mouth-organ burn for good measure. Together with two fellow axemen, he gives us the true sound of guitars colliding - chords from the gutter, swanky pedal effects, and complex cowboy stand-offs/ shoot-outs. Bass is ousted from the mini stage to deliver direct rock 'n' roll deliberations from the floor. Drums are a steadying snare-whacking affair that stutter and skiffle as required, with the bonus of a guest tambourine player. The titles are as rock 'n' roll as you'd expect, well tried ideas like "Disease" and "Come and get it". Bullet Train represent stiff competition for Canvey Island's Doctor Feelgood or Australia's Beasts of Bourbon, with the addition of a good few years of twenty-first century dirt.

London's pubs have blues-rock spilling from every stage and oozing from every cellar, but Bullet Train are the genuine article. No need for debates about the relative merits of Stones or Beatles either, they draw happily from both reference points. Their last song could almost be "Tomorrow Never Knows". Songs maybe laidback or breakneck, but they're always gutsy. Bullet Train may not be highbrow, but they are amongst the highest quality blues rockers you will encounter.

                                                                                 Author: WT

Burning Pilots

            Sat 22 November 2003       @ Hope and Anchor

Melodic art-punk of the highest quality.

Initial impressions are of a driving bass, clever wheedling guitar, and light vocal harmonies over staccato drums and crashing cymbals - sounds of Television, XTC, The Cure's year of "3 Imaginary Boys". Extra quirkiness quickly feeds in with the Fall-styled "Case History" (pronounced almost Kay-sir Hiss Toree-ah). And the Pilots then move on to modern post-punk comic verse in the idiom of Montana Pete and Joeyfat. As a finishing touch, keyboard backing appears for the final songs to raise us towards the off-kilter dreaminess of Air. Core set up is: guitar/ lead vocal; bass; drums/ backing vocal.

The Burning Pilots produce modern pop-art. Andy Warhol - radar screen - can't tell 'em apart at all.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Joe Buzfuz

              Sun 1 August 2004 UK Antifolk Festival @ Buffalo Bar

Dylanic balladry focussed on relationships.

Buzfuz (sometimes Sergeant Buzfuz, sometimes Joe Murphy) plays solo, one man strumming determinedly on a semi-acoustic guitar. Tales of drugged up holiday romances: "The DJ was playing Phil Collins, Depeche Mode and the Farm. He looked like Noel Edmonds, he was waving his arms". Stories of happily lost loves: "Your dress is creased; the monkey with you's greased; he walks like a man, but he talks like a beast". Songs on unhappily lost love: "I didn't even know my name, but you were inside my brain". Dirty women: "If you want someone to borrow your pants and return them unwashed". Social conscience: "The wheels of industry crack-deal ths skies; the television will not be revolutionised" And the first cover I've ever heard of Robyn Hitchcock's "1974". Excellent.

Sergeant Buzfuz is the executioner's Billy Bragg. The dark wit and acute obserevation of Aussie folksters Mick Thomas and Robert Jackson. A big daddy of UK antifolk.

                                                                                 Author: WT

Byrne

              Thu 31 July 2003                        @ Spitz

Patrick Byrne playing in a haunting and passionate piano-guitar four piece.

Consummate indie rock, a pretension-reduced take on Radiohead. Or, if you prefer, a sophisticated take on the Coldplay/ Travis genre. Byrne rock out and chill out in equal measure. At the core of this is an enormous cigarette-blasted, whiskey-sodden, lost-love sadness. Piano breezes through majestically, whilst guitars add huge washes and intricate wires. Byrne fronts with vocal, electric piano, and regular switches to guitar. Accompanied by guitar, bass/ synth/ backing tracks, drums.

Byrne dumps on the mainstream stadium rockers from a great height. He has apparently been taken to the (no 1 chart) hearts of Eastern Europe and Australia. So why not Fool Britannia? Miss out on Byrne, and you’re a donkey.

                                                                                 Author: OT

C33X

               Fri 18 June 2004 The Queen is Dead @ Borderline

Glorious glam inspired by seventies rock heroes.

C33X are fronted by a chillingly cool and understated female blues vocal. Glammy guitar chords are married to oozing solos that glow with (Mick) Ronsonesque white heat. Keyboard can be a soft organ or an Aladdin Sane toy piano. Decisively funky bass provides deep underlying melodies climbing up and down the scales. Drums are neatly damped and full of prog-rock tempo changes. Backing vocals pick up the spirit(s) with lots of honky-tonk "Nah, nah, nah" responses.

The songs are the mix of dryness and surrealism you might expect from a seventies glam-rock tribute. "Fortune teller told me I was wasting my time"; "I know I've made mistakes but I know that I've made them… Well"; and "From a cut glass figurine". A fine homage to Moonage Daydream is dedicated to the Hampstead Bowie wannabe (not BG surely?) - it's called Alligator of course. But this isn't a Bowie cover-band by any stretch of the imagination. Surely there never was a song so indebted to Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama" as C33X's "Never Mind". And the whole set-up echoes the cabaret style of Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

That set-up is: female lead vocal/ semi-acoustic guitar/ keyboards; guitar/ keyboards/ male backing vocal; guitar/ female backing vocal; bass/ male backing vocal; drums/ male backing vocal.

C33X do not simply make the mid-seventies come alive, they bring the sound of the seventies into the 21st century. Their coup-de-grace is the closing "There's only so much we can do for you"; they surely do as much as you could wish for. Making love to your ego never felt so good.

                                                                                 Author: OT

C33X

             Wed 17 March 2004 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar

Epic female-fronted glamrockers.

Lead vocals are good natured raunch, between Debbie Harry, Hazel O'Connor, and the metaphorical rock chick who works in the Virgin Megastore. Drums are understated drivers, with melodic bass bounding along on top, and a pure seventies swell of syrupy drugged-up guitar. Keyboard parts, when added, are gloriously pompous baby-grand. Lyrically, it seems pretty space-cadet - themes like "Free love", "We're obscure objects of desire", and "We can only do so much for you".  Bowie, Roxy Music and early Ultravox all spring to mind as precursors. Set up is female lead vocal/ keyboards, guitar/ keyboards/ male vocal, guitar/ female backing vocal, bass/ male backing vocal, drums.

An affectionate take on the seventies which reads as a joyous tribute rather than a silly parody. Lady Stardust and the Memories of a Free Festival.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Captains of the Citadel

               Sun 4 April 2004               @ Bull and Gate

Primal folk-funk blues-punk from the four prodigies.

The Captains' focus is the amazing bluesy David Gray singing. The voice is complemented by frighteningly squally guitar, funked-up bass and jazzed high-intensity drumming. Lyrically, there are moments of pure poetry: searching titles -  "Whatever it is"; towering lines - "The rooftops of your burning house of passion". The Captains' sound is almost a hybrid of The Ramones and Nirvana fronted by Robert Plant. Set-up here is: lead vocal/ guitar, bass/ backing vocal; guitar; drums.

A&R men! Get your cheques out for the Captains of the Citadel. These guys are very very special. Young, accessible, tuneful, good-looking punk-poetry. Shits on Busted.

                                                                                 Author: OT

The Carbon Plan

            Thu 18 November 2004             @ The Garage

Supercharged punky-pop tunesmiths.

The set opens with a searing synth wail and explodes into a manic melodic attack. The pace is set by rollicking drums and thundering bass tunes, whilst twin guitars add an air of brightness: spangly chords, punky chops, bluesy squidges, ambulance chasing lines that shimmer and sparkle. Vocals are a joyous mass of melodies and harmonies, with forays into minor keys to add to the sense of urgency. Lyrics spread the joie de vivre; aside from "I can't decide what you want from me", messages include: "Hello, hello, you are the one I wanted"; and "Life is for the living, I want a little bit extra. I want and I want, and I want and I want, and I want and I want, and I want and I want… I wanna get stoned". It sounds a bit like Terrorvision versus Teenage Fanclub.

Carbon Plan write grand guitar pop with a sense of fun, energy and humour. Nothing especially unusual or challenging to the ear. Just a manic pop thrill.

                                                                               Author: RMC

Carbon Plan

              Sun 27 June 2004              @ Bull and Gate

Grungey punk mix of attitude and joy.

Deft vocal melodies in Dave Grohl style and spirited backing harmonies plus false falsetto responses. Complementary guitars, hitting the chorus with the same chord sequence at a diiferent pace, and leaving the verse for the lead to deliver dirty spangles, measured fx, and occasional rock heroics. Bass produces disturbingly deep melodies. Stand-in drummer is an imprssive all-rounder [apparently, due to an accident unloading the gear, their regular drummer is injured]. Songs can be cuddly or gnarly. "She's got a picture of you". "We all die in the end". And the curiously old-man blues (I think) of Teenage Scum: "I want what I want, what I want, what I want, what I want, when I want, when I want, when I want, when I want" etc. The sound falls somewhere between Green Day and Queens of the Stone Age. Line-up is first vocal/ rhythm guitar, lead guitar/ second vocal, bass/ backing vocal, drums.

Carbon Plan play fine punky sounds with passion, wit, and half-an-eye on a big stage. Their classic anthem "God bless America, God help the rest of us" would be a fine MTV-friendly sound to stir the minds of the Busted generation. Quality. Wye aye, man.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Cassalis

              Sat 24 April 2004               @ Bull and Gate

4 piece Aussie fronted psych-rock drenched in 60s retro.

Some excellent guitaring with chords recalling the mystical east, wah-wah effects to die for, glammy Mott the Hoople chords and kinky disco riffs. We have a pair of vocalists that could almost be Glen Tilbrook and a whispering Chris Difford (both of Squeeze). Some of the lyrics seem a bit throwaway, and some thoughtful. "I don't feel happy because I'm starting all over again", "I get a feeling inside.. This is my time", and "Sometimes you know you've gotto agitate your mind… Sometimes you know you've got to satisfy your mind". Set up is first vocal/ second guitar, first guitar/ second vocal, bass, drums.

The nearest comparison OT can come to a sound like these guys would be The Animals of "Don't let me be misunderstood" era. But The Animals were in a league of their own. Cassalis niggle by re-inventing close to the point of plagiarism. Their "Something about you I just can't explain" is a very close approximation to 70s song Driver's Seat (Sniff 'n' the Tears). But they are forgiven for also inventing Gaytonbury Festival (Gayton Road is a street in NW3) for those of us too technologically or financially challenged to get Glastonbury tickets. It's all a bit old-hat, but they're dry, witty and fun.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Castro

               Mon 3 May 2004                        @ Barfly

Sonic terrorism from these Brighton punks.

A 20-minute set, but they pack in a couple of numbers that aren't from their CD, including a bit of glammy stomp-rock. And this remains mostly trademark Castro territory. A droning sub-vibrato wail of a vocal that manages against the odds to be expressive and musical. Rapidfire guitar side-swipes. A pummelled spped-bass. Cymbal-crash, snare-crack and bass-thunder drumming. Lyrically, Castro are as dour and threatening as ever: "Oh my God, is there something wrong?", "I'm the reason why you came here on your own" and "Oh my sugar, why do you look so sad". Line-up is lead vocal/ guitar, bass/ backing vocal/ tambourine, drums.

The only point of playing rock 'n' roll in the twenty-first century is to take noise somewhere it's never been before. Castro take noise somewhere it's never been before. The unmissable unforgiven.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Castro

             Wed 13 August 2003             @ Dublin Castle

A post-rockin' wall-of-sound, blending Bob Mould on speed with the low density musing of a pensive Sonic Youth.

Staccato stream-of-consciousness vocals, crammed-in Dead Kennedys style. Bass playing must rank as some of the fastest ever seen, assisted by audacious use of a mike stand (I can't explain, go look for yourself). Typically, this is a short set, but just feel the quality. Economical line-up too: guitar/ vocal, bass, drums. Nothing wasted, nothing spare.

The motown of the post-punk world, with an undercurrent of barely suppressed anger. I know, I fuckin' know, you must see them now.

                                                                                 Author: OT

Ceiling

               Fri 8 July 2006                @ Bull and Gate

Understated vocals and shoegaze guitar antics wrap around chopping and shuffling rhythms.

This is an unusual indie agenda, not comfortably within the ambits of shoegaze or campus rabble-rousing. Drums rustle and trickle, judder and crack - no stomping anthems anywhere. The bass sound is big but gentle, nudging and thrumming hooks that steer without dominating. Even the voice is cheerfully subdued, low-key asides, a subtle melody half spoken and half purred.

The spacious texture is provided so the guitar can weave its magic freely. Sustain that rears up and soars, pinging strings bathed in reverb, scrabbling strings that mellow to a shimmer, solo jangling that bubbles exuberantly or weaves intricate twists. So much activity and delay, you seem to be listening to three guitars rather than one. You never get the drifting and impregnable fog that's typical of shoegaze. There are always discrete guitar lines to follow, that goad you unresisting into the torrents, falls, swirls and pools of the rapids.

Ceiling defy simple explanation. The heat-haze of guitar invites you to the era of Ride, the subtle groove is from the Spiritualized bible, the shy playfulness is Finlay: but (vocal aside) they remind me of the Blue Aeroplanes more than anyone else. Despite the focus and complexity of the music, you can't help but feel they spend a lot of rehearsal time monkeying around - even the name Ceiling seems to be an ironic reference to the shoegaze tag. All the same, the performance is more wistful than whimsical: a self-effacing band playing music that is unforced and calmly persuasive. A dreamy mirage of merry melancholia.

                                                                                  Author: RF

The Cells

            Mon 20 February 2006            @ Bull and Gate

Nineties electro-baggy with hefty post-punk roots. Either they're on something, or my drink's been spiked.

The sound of the Cells mutates and divides so quickly it's near impossible to encapsulate. There are a couple of constants though. Constant #1 is the Pete Hook bass-style, stamping its command on the tunes. Brick-tonning drum density seems like it's set in, but slims to a light trippy beat. Guitar travels from harsh clangs to fuzzed-up needling, to fx chews and the strange world of violin-voiced slides. Then it disappears. Vocals throw you around to Kelly Jones bluesers, fly-off into Bryan Ferry warbles, and then jettison into helium falsetto. Keyboard and synth are almost ungraspable, a Telstar treacle-dragon soars, a kraftwerk modem-link beeps and squiggles, a prehistoric pigeon chirps squidgily, piano-bells peal, staccato organ strikes jangle, droning pipes didg and doppler. So that leaves constant #2 - entertainingly clever lyrics. Ok, one song is introduced as an account of extreme paranoia, and you just know a lot of the words emerge from being stoned, but they work: "You're killing me from within"; "Why won't you step into my world?"; "Have you ever had a conversation in your head - but the words are not yours?"; "If I can't have you, no-one else will… you're just like me, we see in black and white… you're fuckin' with my head and I can't stay still"; and "I can't hold back the tears, though I've been doing that for years". Somehow, it feels like 1994.

The Cells have gathered up genetic material from all over the scene: Joy Division, New Order, The Beloved, Super Furry Animals, Nirvana, Leftfield, British Sea Power - put that in your pipe and smoke it, fly one minute, plummet the next. Angsty balladry that makes Coldplay look like petulant toddlers is suddenly bounced for 2 minutes of instrumental electro-groove. I was blown away by The Cells show, and not in the Cobain sense. But you can't help thinking that there is, in fact, more black than white. Do you hate what you are?

                                                                                  Author: RF

Central Reservation

             Thu 10 March 2005              @ Bull and Gate

Palatable and unpretentious countrification.

Vocal is open and direct, almost falsetto at times, gently drawling a sweet tune, with close harmonies and ooh-aah by-lines from the backing. Guitar gives out circulating semi-acoustic lines and catchy chord sequences, traded briefly for Formbyesque ukulele strumming. Bass digs you slow gentle nudges. Drums are artfully brushed, dabbed, trickled and smacked. Lines tackle relationships with vehicles and relationships with women: "The twenty-four wheels turn and drive to the south, one too many truck-stop meals leaves a bad taste in my mouth"; "You're the one who makes her smile, and makes her cry and laugh a lot"; and "Treat me badly, so I wouldn't mind, cos I love you madly, so I wouldn't mind". Then the ukulele song, about the extra pulling power that lead singers and guitarists have: "What you need's a good old-fashioned man". To compare these guys to Neil Diamond seems cruel, and musically Bread would be nearer the mark: on the other hand, Bread were joyless, and Central Reservation are genuinely (if gently) amusing.

Central Reservation aren't coat-tailing in the Scouse Psych scene, they're a pub-friendly country band with sights apparently set on Radio 2. To me, Central Reservation are too laid back to be exciting, but they occupy the middle of the road perfectly. Because the world is a roundabout, it turns me on.

                                                                               Author: RMC

The Changes

              Thu 20 May 2004               @ Bull and Gate

New Lad rock - The Changes should be called Travasis.

I feel I should point out the clear melodies of the emotional vocal, the autumnal lead guitar swirls, the warm chords, the tunefully angsty bass and the dramatic drums. And these things do glimmer through the aggressive treble frequencies. Now, swallow down a handful of the words. "My light shines on no