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BURN BABY BURN - MIND ON FIRE ALL DAYER
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:: Day For Airstrikes
:: Bandyleg
:: North Cross
:: The Room Orchestra
:: Day of the Fight
:: The Dragon Rapide
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03 April 2005 / Satan's Hollow / Manchester
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By Dave Himelfield
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I’m trying to work out which I hate more - bedwetting emo band names or gratuitously overlong and smart-arsed post-rock ones. Isle of Wight’s Day of the Fight fall into the first bracket with a name that could be described as “fairly limp-wristed” and we know what that is usually a warning of – overwrought emo…(cough)…sorry, post-hardcore. Thankfully this Solent island four-piece aren’t in fact half bad. Yes, it’s like a trip to the sandwich counter at Tesco. It says cheese salad on the box and what you get most definitely tastes like a cheese salad sandwich. Predictable but wholesome nonetheless, Day of the Fight certainly flourish with youthful abandon. It’s not unique or massively challenging but contains all the pounding riffs, anthemic choruses and tempo changes that your average Funeral for a Friend enthusiast could ever want.
There was always one type of kid at school that wasn’t exactly unpopular but people had reason to dislike him. He came to high school a year early and was good, in fact, better than everybody else at just about every subject and sport and probably wanking as well. How destructive envy can be. But as we grow older and hopefully smarter we learn to push such negative energies aside in favour of unadulterated admiration. Welsh four-piece The Room Orchestra are one such band. They don’t just do one type of pop song but about four different types and in general, more convincingly than those that can just manage one. Grrr! From drone-rock, to alt-country and breezy purer pop The Room Orchestra perform it with considerable wit, heart grappling melodies and lush, kooky keyboards. “They sound like Pulp!” someone sneers; ever an unintended compliment if there was one. Moreover The Room Orchestra seem to have their heads dipped further left than Cocker and co. every did and it makes for rather joyous listening.
It takes a while to get through the unfriendly moat that initially surrounds The Dragon Rapide’s particularly noodle-some brand of math rock. The make Faraquet sound pretty straight forward but if you had no problem absorbing the likes of Don Caballero you’ll be in your element. For the rest of us persistence is required among these tangled instrumentals but the warm, celebratory side of this Leeds quartet overwhelmingly fights its way to the forefront. Like a great thriller it doesn’t support lazy or casual attention but after a bit of perseverance you’ll find yourself in a maze that was a pleasure to get lost in.
An odd looking assembly of musicians then clutter the Hollow’s general performing area sporting several guitars, violins and a couple of disconcerting beards. I’m told that oddball collective North Cross have had more gigs than actual practises and normally I wouldn’t be beaming with expectation except that they feature former members of ace and now defunct instrumental combo Burnst and Our Ridiculous Beautiful Plan. The result is thus less of the tedious jam session one might expect. Many of North Cross are from a background of experienced jam bands and it’s nice to see a postmodern set up actually succeed. The result whatever the intention may be, is something akin to Godspeed in their freer moments except with a large bearded man relentless howling folk laments which rather aptly reminds you of Willard Grant Conspiracy. With a little proper homework this seems to have quite limitless potential only North Cross would probably argue that practice would tarnish their spontaneous edge.
The underground always brings in the new mainstream sound and so it isn’t all that surprising to see the advent of popular post-rock. Day For Airstrikes perhaps wear their Mogwai, Oceansize and At The Drive-In badges a little to prominently but nevertheless they do such insignia justice in a series of bone jarring, expansive epics. Modern dance informed beats add an extra dimension that carries Day For Airstrikes away from the generic diazepam popping territory of something like Redjetson. Drunk teens ironically cavort in the background but it’s quiet possibly judging by the infectious nature of rhythms that their sarcastic moves are quite as considered as they initially seemed. Day For Airstrikes also have an irreverent and welcome tendency for ripping songs to shreds at the points where they start to grow thin. I just hope that the Jimmy Eat World t-shirt is a similar badge of flippancy.
If you want truly authentic violin sounds you have to learn the hard way and no amount of delay or drums sticks for bows is going to change that. Bandyleg thankfully possess one of Manchester’s finest exponents of the instrument. While possessing dexterity that could have only been nurtured in a classical background he gives his instrument the full rock treatment swinging it violently about the place. If violins weren’t so damned difficult to get a tuneful sound from then perhaps the guitar’s monopoly of music may be threatened. Rather like a stripped down Silver Mt. Zion, Bandyleg make melancholic and expansive sounds fronted by emotive string melodies. While they periodically achieve atmospheres of considerable abstraction things can get a bit one dimensional. Despite the use of some beautiful echoing timbres there isn’t enough variety to prevent tonal immunity setting in and things sometimes fade under a cloud of reverb. Again dynamics could do with being played out with more polarity. Nevertheless Bandyleg still create some captivating and enigmatic landscapes and hopefully with a few tweaks it’s possible the tyranny of the guitar could be toppled.
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Resources:
Day For Airstrikes
The Room Orchestra
Day of the Fight
The Dragon Rapide
North Cross (download)
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