UPFRONT ONLINE

A quick scan round YouTube to check these guys out before heading out to the gig let me see I was in for a trip down memory lane. They may come from Sweden, but these lads have a musical palette made up from mixing the post C86 movement guitar heavy sound made famous in the UK and Europe by the likes of Ride and Slowdive. A less than subtle nod to Sigur Ros is also pretty evident however there’s no made up language masquerading as the lyrics here, there’s simply no lyrics.

The whole sound is a wash of delay, distortion and there are three guys with guitars swaying about the tiny stage in time with the drummer, the sound is quite pleasant to be honest, nothing too challenging sticks out of an extremely melodic set. Looking round the room 75% of the punters are quite literally with bums on seats, with the only standing attendee’s propping up the bottle bar upstairs.

The biggest problem here is the band is actually tight, able and ready, but it all kind of looks like students playing around for the evening. For a band who communicate so little it has to be pretty visual to make any real impact live, this set on a large stage with a light show and backdrop could have been dope smokers heaven, instead the swaying starts to grate after a while.

The set itself is shorter than I had bargained on, to their credit the arrangements were kept to the specs of the recorded versions, no jamming, no extended solo’s, no chat between songs, you have to kind of admire the boldness of such a minimalist affair.

In nutshell, its stadium indie rock minus the stadium, or instrumental punk for yoga and Thai-chi enthusiasts, sure it’s quirky, but it’s not without its charms.

MORE INFO on thatSpace