Issue 90 / July 2018

REVIEWS
Charles Howl (Kevin Barrett / @Kev_Barrett)
Charles Howl (Kevin Barrett / @Kev_Barrett)
The generous helping of tracks last year’s long player means
there’s little room in the set for debut Sir Vices, save for the
delicate stomper Lunacy. This track adds to a performance which
touches upon a huge gamut of genres. Flashes of garage rock,
orchestral pop and glam are all expertly balanced so as not to
make it parody nor regressive.
While they may have done more to enamour themselves to
a thin but devoted audience on stage tonight, perhaps it’s the
attention Charles Howl is giving to his songwriting and recording
craft which has brought his success, even if it’s to the detriment
of social niceties.
Sam Turner / @Samturner1984
Charles Howl
+ Beija Flo
Harvest Sun @ The Shipping Forecast –
31/05
It’s a crowded stage at The Shipping Forecast tonight. Even
with only BEIJA FLO’s solitary presence there’s a variety of
amps and keyboards on stage, around which are dotted various
mannequins and Flo’s deconstructed bouquet of lilies. The artist
herself is looking resplendent in red sequinned leotard and
trademark smudged make-up. A performer of paradoxes, Beija
Flo is at once vulnerable and an exhibitionist. On occasion it feels
like her bold and honest ballads, backed by chamber pop tracks
from a laptop, deserve a more expansive sound; but at the same
time that vulnerability, along with her rhetorical dialogue with the
MacBook, adds to a spellbinding performance.
The drama and theatrics of the support act is followed by
an all-together more workmanlike performance from CHARLES
HOWL. A project which came
to full fruition last year with
the release of the excellent
solo LP My Idol Family, the
group has developed from
a collaboration between
Londoners Let’s Wrestle
(frontman Danny Nellis’
Korg sports LW leader
Wesley Gonzalez’s name
this evening) and Proper
Ornaments. That album
is replicated in all its
glory tonight and sounds
wonderful.
Keeping to his enigmatic
reputation, there’s little in
the way of pleasantries
from Nellis. Two incidents
characterise tonight’s
performance, one being a
passive aggressive exchange
with the sound tech who is
quick to point out that he
can’t understand instructions
delivered through a reverbheavy
mic; the other is the
hastiest, most unceremonious
stage exit I’ve witnessed.
The languid tempo and
wry observation of social
interaction in The Dinner
Party is a fitting soundtrack
to the vague tensions that
linger through the night.
That being said, there is
little to fault about the actual
music; at the top of set, the
chamber psych of Death Of
Print announces the band
with panache. As well as
honourable sentiment, the
track is a brilliant distillation
of Charles Howl’s charms,
with a driving drum beat
propelling a darkly beautiful
mod cut, akin to somewhere
between The Velvet
Underground and The Pretty
Things.
Cocaine Piss
+ Strange Collective
+ Salt The Snail
+ Eyesore And The Jinx
EVOL @ EBGBs – 26/05
First on at EBGBs, EYESORE AND THE JINX play to a decent
early doors crowd, their live chops improving in tandem with
their rising profile. Anchored by the sonorous basslines of singer
Josh Miller, the trio’s thunderous alloy of rockabilly and punk
traces a line back to LA legends The Gun Club. Counterbalancing
the thrum of the harder hitting moments with a slew of slow
arpeggio-led interludes, the three-piece wield a sound bigger
than the sum of their parts. The best moment comes with
recent Trump/May/Putin-baiting single Gated Community which
translates into a seething rendition.
SALT THE SNAIL open their set with vocalist Krystian
stepping onstage in a mask singing the theme to Jurassic Park a
cappella, before moving back to the floor to spend the remainder
of the set singing directly to the front row. An intriguing collision
of punked-up metal and alt. rock topped with sung-spoken
vocals, the outfit’s instrumental skill is immediately apparent.
Comprising an octopus-armed Keith Moon-style drummer and a
bassist who weaves his way around the fretboard impressively,
the pulverising guitar riffs at times sound akin to Seattle sludgegrunge
doyens the Melvins.
The imminent arrival of gig circuit stalwarts STRANGE
COLLECTIVE sees the crowd peak as the quartet assemble
for the main support slot. Playing with the easy confidence
of headliners, the outfit’s psych inflected garage rock is in
redoubtable health, peaking with Super Touchy and After Eight.
“We play short songs and short sets for people who don’t
have a lot of spare time,” Tommy Ramone stated back in the
mid-1970s, and as the band who (arguably, can of worms alert)
laid punk’s foundations it’s the one principal that has remained
true. If the Bruddas played songs for people who didn’t have
much spare time, COCAINE PISS play them for people who
get bored between breaths. Armed with a name that ensures
daytime radio play on any planet is unlikely and raised eyebrows
from customs official on every frontier, lead singer Aurélie, replete
with skateboader’s kneepads, bounds onstage last, her energetic
presence piloting the quartet’s near-nonstop live onslaught.
They hurl themselves into proceedings, playing as though
their lives depend on it. Trading in 90-second blasts that sound
like John Peel faves Melt Banana doing battle with hardcore
heroes Minor Threat, the Belgian punks’ commitment can’t be
faulted. The feeling that this is going over ground well trodden by
the aforementioned pioneers and scores of lesser lights remains,
however. As blink and you miss it cuts Ugly Face On and Sex
Weirdos careen past, an injection of light and shade, or maybe
something that didn’t have an escape velocity-paced bpm would
be welcome. That said, proceedings hurtle to a close so quickly
the onset of boredom is avoided. A diverting blast, but it’s the
troika of support bands that linger far longer in the memory.
Richard Lewis
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