Placebo: Never Let Me Go
Everything’s a matter of perspective. Even as Placebo’s 2016 greatest hits album and accompanying two-year world tour reminded fans of their extensive back catalogue, it reminded the band they’d never been about commercial success or nostalgia.
Tears For Fears: The Tipping Point
The road to The Tipping Point was long and (yes) winding.
There were the initial “speed dating” songwriting sessions with flavour of the month hitmakers. There was the fully completed album of wall-to-wall “bangers” all intended to top the pop charts. There was Curt Smith’s disappointment in the results, prompting him to consider leaving Tears For Fears again.
Spoon: Lucifer On The Sofa
The opening 20 seconds of Spoon’s tenth album tell you all you need to know. In-studio banter and the sound of instruments being tuned are universal shorthand for “this music was recorded by people playing in a room together”. And that’s exactly the spirit that the instantly compelling Lucifer On The Sofa embraces.
Gigs, they say, should start with a bang. Literal pyrotechnics, epic walk-on music, a high-speed hit song, even a straightforward city-based greeting are all designed to grab an audience’s attention right away.
Someone forgot to tell IDLES. Or the band just didn’t listen. Either way, they’ve come up with something even more effective.
If you call your band Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, you’re not really going to be serving up subtlety. And so it is for this Newcastle five-piece, who apply the same more-is-more approach of their name to their music and live performances.
It’s in Matt Baty’s roar as he delivers lyrics about everything from self-esteem to religion. It’s in the brutal tectonic riffs laid down by guitarists Sam Grant and Adam Sykes in Black Sabbath-on-steroids anthems like Halloween Bolson. It’s in the unflinching rhythms of drummer Chris Morley and bassist Johnny Hedley that make the group sound like a marching herd of mastodons, right from the very opening beats of show-starter Reducer.
“I never thought I’d be sitting here in London, shouting into a microphone about worms,” admits Sebastian Murphy from Electric Ballroom’s stage.
He’s not the only one. Superficially, at least, Viagra Boys’ rise from the Stockholm punk scene seems surprising. There’s that name. There are the lyrics: Worms does what it says on the tin; one of the band’s biggest songs has Murphy listing various sports. There are the sax solos. There’s the keytar. There’s the sense that they’re just taking the piss.
Just Enough Education To Perform was, recounts Kelly Jones, a massive album for The Stereophonics. It reached number one in the UK charts not just once, but twice. It went six times platinum. It resulted in three young Welshmen headlining Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage and touring America with U2.
“It was all police escorts and helicopters at that time,” he tells a sold-out Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
You need guts to play a song immortalised by Jimi Hendrix. You need talent to pull it off. You need charisma to make it your own. Ayron Jones has all three in spades. And that’s how he can also take on Purple Rain as if it’s just another song.
But, as impressive as his renditions are, the singer-guitarist hasn’t come all the way to London to play cover versions. The 35-year-old’s debut UK gig is all about showcasing new album Child Of The State. His third LP, but first on a major label, is stuffed with the blues-infused, grunge-tinted hard rock you might expect from a musician born and raised in Seattle. In other words, it’s packed with songs meant to be played loud and live.
The lazy comparisons with New Order are inevitable. Their sound (post-punk guitars and attitude meet dance rhythms, electronica, and early ’80s synthpop) isn’t dissimilar. Their roots (the North) are shared. Even their make-up (three men, one woman) is the same.
But Working Men’s Club, who arrived with debut single Bad Blood in early 2019, are no nostalgic knock-offs. Clearly fiercely independent and uncompromising, they ditch convention. That’s certainly the case at a sold-out Electric Brixton on the final night of a national headlining tour.
To truly get Tankus The Henge, you need to see them live. Sure, three studio albums give an idea of a sound that “eclectic” doesn’t even come close to describing. Yes, the concert footage posted to YouTube by fans hints at their musical prowess and dynamic performance style.
But only when you’re in the same room as these seven musicians and 800 of their fans do you feel the full force of a band most easily described in terms of natural phenomena. Take your pick from tsunami, earthquake, or tornado.
Nils van der Linden