And so after months of hard work recording and gigging their full-length debut, worriedaboutsatan finally unleash ‘Arrivals’ – which I reviewed a few weeks back –
on May 18th, and to herald the occasion, there’s an inaugural album launch gig. The first thing that strikes me is the fact that the venue – albeit quite small – is absolutely jammed. It’s gratifying to see that a band as odd as worriedaboutsatan can draw a decent crowd on a very, very wet Friday night.
It’s incredibly dark, not to mention incredibly hot, by the time the enigmatic Lupercal take to the floor. There’s something oddly familiar about this acoustic guitar and violin duo, and the sense of deja vu becomes deja lu as their set progresses. And progress it does: after a shaky start, things begin to pick up with ‘With Eyes so Full of Sparks of Love,’ the guitar picking of early Leonard Cohen providing the backdrop to a Thom Yorke style vocal delivery. The final third of the set is a medley of ‘New England / Nylon / Motherfucker! It’s Alive and Bleeding’ and builds a volume and intensity that’s truly striking in this ‘unplugged’ context.
I’m reliably informed that there will be no Lupercal recordings or internet presence, and that they will instead exist as an ephemeral live entity only. Perhaps the ideas Bill Drummond details in ‘17’ have merit after all...
Fuzzy Lights are a full rockin’ band, with bass, drums, guitars and a violin. From the outset, they sound rather like Spokes. Only not quite as good. There are moments when they sound a little like ‘Here Comes Success’ era band of Susans, reeling out lengthy numbers with rather dirge-like qualities (I mean this in a positive way!), before reverting to the Spokes template. It’s ok. But only ok. Hey ho.
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However, this is worriedaboutsatan’s night. Before the gig, Gavin had been hyped, seemingly surprised by the turnout. But now, all that energy is channelled into pumping out the clattering rhythms and firing off salvoes of disquieting noise with precision timing. The man puts his all into it, wringing every last tweet from his technology. Tom Morris, of Her Name is Calla, makes a guest appearance and lends some indecipherable vocals before things really start kicking off.
The sound is excellent, and the relentless but ever-shifting pulsating beats are very much to the fore of the mix, which is fleshed out with immense, dense bass frequencies. Meanwhile, Tom peels of sheets of hot metal guitar noise that serves as both contrast and compliment, and the film ‘13 Tzameti’ rolls on behind them, providing a most unsettling backdrop to proceedings.
It’s these seemingly incongruous elements that make worriedaboutsatan such an exciting act, particularly live. The shows are intense, a multisensory experience that’s truly captivating, and they’re neither rock nor dance, but a perfect balance of the best of both, giving them immense crossover potential. Having already had their music crop up in some strange places (R1, 6Music and Coronation Street, for example), the release of ‘Arrivals’ really could see them going places. And with shows like this, they should be packing out substantially larger venues before the year’s out.
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