Blame Kurt Cobain. By nicking and mainstreaming the loud-quiet-loud dynamic of, say, Gigantic, then crediting Pixies, he effectively reduced them to one-trick ponies in popular culture.
But the band have always been so much more, so much weirder, than simple sudden changes in volume and intensity. Their debut EP begins with a stuttering twangy surf guitar lick. It features what sounds like a folk song on meth about the “son of incestuous union”, and a pumped-up polka partly sung in Spanish.
Chappaqua Wrestling frontmen Charlie Woods and Jake Mac met at school when they were 14 years old.
They both liked the indie music of the time. But, growing up in “boring suburbia” outside Brighton, what really cemented their friendship was a shared love of Manchester bands like New Order, Joy Division, and Happy Mondays.
“When you find someone who has an interest in what you’re doing, when you find anyone who’s on the same wavelength, when it feels like you’re in this sea of people who just don’t get it, those relationships are so, so special,” remembers Woods.
Tonight, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate. The Hold Steady have hit their 20th anniversary this year. The band are weeks away from releasing a new album. They’re in the middle of their annual three-day London residency, appropriately named The Weekender (after one of their songs). Hell, it’s a Saturday night. In Camden.
“London, I’m coming for you,” declares Justin Schlosberg. Like a football player about to take a penalty, his posture changes. And, as the rest of Hell Is For Heroes rage through the remainder of Five Kids Go, the singer jumps from the stage. Of course, the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo audience catch him. It’s the kind of behaviour they’ve come to expect from the frontman. He’s already crowd surfed while singing, with corded mic and all, having emerged from the audience during To Die For’s instrumental intro. He’s already done an almost handstand on Joe Birch’s bass drum and leapt over it like an Olympic hurdler.
The Black Angels have never hidden their influences. Named after a Velvet Underground song, they even namecheck the band’s members — alongside other guiding voices like Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee — on The River. A gentle ’60s folk acid trip, it’s one of 11 tracks from latest album Wilderness Of Mirrors performed during a mesmerising show that celebrates both their own legacy and those pioneers of psychedelia who made their career possible.
Inclusion is important to Yungblud. His songs, which touch on everything from gender identity and prescription pharmaceuticals to mental health and family dysfunction, preach self-acceptance and resisting society’s pressures to conform. His fanbase, the Black Hearts Club, is built on what’s described as a shared sense of unconditional love and communal support.
His live shows are about connecting with everyone in the venue. Early in tonight’s sold-out Wembley Arena show, he urges we treat everyone with respect. Later, while introducing Anarchist, he declares: “Never be afraid to be yourself. If people don’t like you for it, they’ve got no fucking imagination. You’re fucking brilliant just the way you are. “People still misunderstand me. They’ll never fucking get it. But it doesn’t matter because we’ve got each other.”
The chanting (“Bilk! Bilk! Bilk!”) begins even before the band take the stage. The chaos begins soon after they do. Within the opening minute of Fashion, as any partially filled pint cups are still being hurled towards Omeara’s stage, the audience starts bouncing. Not long after, the first body’s up in the air. As if on cue, the moshing kicks off. And so it goes, pausing only when singer-guitarist Sol Abrahams spots a punch being thrown and has the punter ejected. (Tonight’s manifesto is clear: have fun, go wild, and don’t be a dick.) Not even the relatively restrained Part And Parcel — featuring just voice and guitar — is complete without a crowd surfer.
Too often live shows highlight a band’s shortcomings. Especially if that band’s carefully crafted albums favour a big, slick production style over capturing the raw energy of real people playing together. Without the studio trickery to hide behind, on stage their limitations as performers, musicians, or songwriters become glaringly obvious.
That’s not the case with PVRIS. Instead, their big, bold performance at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo highlights several things not immediately obvious from their records. Their songs, which mash up rock, electro, and hip-hop elements, are actually more substance than style. Singer/songwriter Lynn Gunn is no slouch as a guitarist. And her voice is far more powerful and — with rich soulful, bluesy hints — far more nuanced than some of the autotuned studio recordings suggest.
To the strains of Mahler’s Adagietto, Matty Healy has just felt himself up on a couch, taken at least two bites of a raw slab of meat, done shirtless push-ups in front of a wall of ’60s TV sets, and climbed right into one of those flickering screens.
Where does one go from there?
Few bands have as strong an identity as Fields Of The Nephilim. Even seen in silhouette — partly obscured by a dry ice fog; wearing their trademark wide-brimmed hats, mirrored sunglasses, long duster coats, cowboy boots, and a shroud of mystery — they’re unmistakable. Musically, there’s nothing quite like their pairing of what would become goth signatures (baritone vocals, chiming chords, bleak soundscapes, a bass player convinced they’re lead guitarist) with twangy Spaghetti Western slide guitar. And lyrically, Carl McCoy’s interests — religion, the occult, the Victorian underworld — shaped a post-apocalyptic world to match the music’s brooding sense of unease.
Nils van der Linden