w/ REDJETSON, ZELEGA + A WORLD ASLEEP
SOUTHAMPTON, JOINERS ARMS: 10.04.05
I seem to arrive at the Joiners tonight just as A World Asleep reach their wall-of-fuzz screaming climax, which automatically makes them the shoutiest of all the ensembles featured here tonight. Let’s face it though, Delia Smith could (vocally) shout down the others here tonight, particularly as two of them haven’t got a vocalist (and not, as I have seen before, because their singer hasn’t bothered to turn up).Yes, from here on in this evening, the post-men knock thrice.
Zelega are an instrumental group leaning towards the ‘loud’ part of the ‘quiet/loud’, with the lingering guitar lines and bass-heavy bottom end, so that term ‘post-rock’ rears its controversial head and the bands associated with it (y’know, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky etc.). Which makes them a decent proposition musically, but it’s just difficult to see what they want their music to do, whether they want it to wash over the listener or encase them, because it’s difficult to tell whether the collective head became lost in music here. The near-destructive finale, though, which involves ramming drumsticks down between the neck and the strings of the guitar just because it, like, makes a bloody loud noise counts as the most exciting signing off we’ve seen for a while.Redjetson seem to make a mockery of the small stage they accommodate, not only because of their towering music, but also through looking like some sort of post-indie cruise-liner or their own shambolic coat-of-arms. It’s the 1-4-1 formation, the drummer crashing away at the back, two players of guitar-shaped instruments shuffling violently either side (yes, they have three guitarists and one bassist) plus the charismatic vocalist stood legs-astride at the front. Thing is, their music seems to get bigger, bolder, ballsier and generally louder each time I see them – I fear for the day that they’ll have to reinforce venues to take this sort of thing. They are what, say, Elbow or even Joy Division would (have) sound(ed) like if they really rocked out, and it’s occasionally wondrous to think that music so huge could be so entrancing. Sprawling and spiralling in an atmospheric manner, songs like the none-more-climactic ‘Sky Is Breaking’ and their near-hypnotic ending utilise the trembling vocals, sometimes near-military drumbeats and subtle, repeated hooks to optimum effect. If they carry on like this they’ll be a force to be reckoned with before the year is out.
65daysofstatic, however, are something else. Their matrimony of electronic beats, quivering atmospherics and bulldozer-style guitar thrashing has had them likened to acts as diverse as Kid606, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and At The Drive-In, but by now they’ve crafted a post-everything style of their own. To the delight of yours truly they start with the paranoid, frantic techno-metal of ‘The Major Cities Of The Universe Are Being Destroyed One By One By The Monsters’ so they could then do a forty-minute rendition of ‘The Birdie Song’ and I’d leave thinking it was a triumphant gig. Fortunately, though, it gets better. Highlights are difficult to pick out, although single ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ prompts the most jerky movements from those assembled, and one of the most telling parts is where a sampled voice says how effective going from really quiet to really loud is, before being aptly demonstrated by the band themselves. The question is, though, how can music created by cold, metallic boxes and bits of tree with strings attatched sound like such an assault on the senses, and yet so staggeringly beautiful? Maybe it’s because they thrash about like their instruments are trying to escape, maybe it’s because the plaintive electronic parts compliment so well the barrage of noise, or perhaps, more likely, it’s because they’ve developed a way of making cacophony sound so gloriously brilliant. They’re an enthralling lesson in how to be anthemic without singing a note.
Review by Thomas Blatchford
www.65daysofstatic.com
www.redjetson.co.uk
www.zelega.co.uk
www.aworldasleep.com
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