Issue 93 / October 2018

REVIEWS
Protomartyr (Tomas Adam)
Sauna Youth (Tomas Adam)
Protomartyr
+ Sauna Youth
+ Eyesore And The Jinx
EVOL @ O2 Academy 2 – 30/08
Regular visitors to this parish should already know about
EYESORE AND THE JINX. They are possibly the best new band
in the region. Their potential is huge, almost as big of the sound
they create. It’s gnarly, angry, bass-driven slabs of damaged
guitar pop. It evokes a hybrid of the Blues Explosion, Grinderman
and The Voidz. The early arrivals are here just for them, they
know and play like their lives depend on it. It’s incredible. Nurture
them with your presence.
SAUNA YOUTH are three albums in. They were asked by
the headliners to support which is always a good sign. Two
songs in and you can see why. There’s an early 90s vibe to this
London-based four-piece. It’s edgy with a healthy dollop of
anorak fanzine chic. The stage is overly littered with various pot
plants, which doesn’t really give a homely feel to proceedings. It
distracts from what is a very tight and fluid set of rather excellent
dark indie pop tunes. New Fear is brash and swarthy, while
Monotony is anything but with its yelping and repetitive chorus.
Jen Calleja cuts a slightly nervous figure as a lead but her voice is
a great instrument and by the time they reach the high-point of
Transmitters, her fragile confidence is scowling into the mic, her
eyes at one with the crowd. After 13 songs, which is apparently
“loads”, they scuttle off back to their transit van and a four-hour
slog to that London, safe in the knowledge that Liverpool really
took to them, and their plants.
After the greenery has been painstakingly cleared, the
sparseness of the stage is making the room feel like the Echo Arena
and Detroit’s PROTOMARTYR have just the sound to fill it. Having
had their third album released by Domino, the four-piece seem like
they’ve been doing this for decades. Although you could be fooled
by that assumption as lead ‘singer’ Joe Casey lurches onto the
stage, drink in hand and shirt nicely ironed. Maybe the right word
is ‘staggered’ as the opener is pure Mark E. Smith. The diction, the
prose and the delivery screams ‘FALL’. Thankfully, that’s where it
ends as the 15-song set gets better and better and better.
There’s performance here that seems part planned and part
shambles. Casey is every inch the anti-frontman. Slurping from
a can of nasty lager as the band veers between The Jesus Lizard
and Hüsker Dü, he is prowling the front line like a disheveled
comedian who has fallen from grace. Eager to get one more
laugh from the crowd, failing and not caring, all the while with
an air of that bloke at closing time that won’t leave you alone.
Windsor Hum is a highlight, its choppy guitar lines feeding Casey
with the energy to rant and leer, his erratic movements becoming
more intense as the lager kicks in. Why Does It Shake? gets the
plaudits, though, for ending the set on a heavy and driving skullpounding
noise as Casey is virtually screaming.
It’s a surprise success for this writer; it’s entertainment on
the rocks, methodically interwoven with absolute chaos and fair
play to the enthusiastic Thursday night town crowd for helping it
along. The sound of new Detroit is guitar-heavy and a bit pissed.
Or is that pissed off? No matter. It’s a beautiful noise.
Ian Abraham / @scrash
Haley Heynderickx
+ Charlie McKeon
+ Rachael Jean Harris
Harvest Sun @ 81 Renshaw – 24/08
In March of this year, HALEY HEYNDERICKX delivered I
Need To Start A Garden, an album of tender, delicate melodies,
and finely crafted folk moments, high on emotion and steeped in
personality. These are songs of someone trying to understand
others, while trying to understand herself. Her haunting and
haunted vocals, at once pure and understated, seem to leave
the melodies almost hanging in the air, floating across the finger
picked rhythms of her guitar. The appeal of her writing – and
there’s a lot of appeal – is in the warmth, the subtlety and the
restraint. It’s all for the sake of the song.
Our evening of well-crafted song, of rich melody and strong,
intelligent lyrics begins well when RACHAEL JEAN HARRIS
appears onstage. Truly gifted, with a voice capable of carrying
clear and often raw soul and emotion, her melodies seem to find
their natural place, almost unaided. Natural, intuitive and utterly
spellbinding. There are songs of confinement, of the oppressive
nature of isolation and the damage it can do. Sublimely imagined
and perfectly delivered over her skilled guitar work, there’s pain
in these songs, a real edge and, in some places, a welcome
melancholy. Finishing with Hair Of The Moon, a song from this
year which sounds older than its time, somehow more familiar
than it should be, is a fine example classic songwriting. They
should teach this kind of thing. Soul and depth.
CHARLIE MCKEON is a fine fellow. A ridiculously talented
writer and performer, steeped in the rich tradition of English and
Irish folk, of the Appalachians, and of performers such as John
Martyn and Davy Graham. He’s as comfortable with traditional
folk song as he is in writing about apple pie. And write about
Apple Pie he does. Wonderfully. Better than anyone else, I’d
say. McKeon’s guitar playing is a thing to behold, too, his fingers
dancing effortlessly through the changes, up and down the neck.
We’ve seen him play many times now, and we’re starting to really
believe that some tangible product, an actual release of some
shape or other, is well overdue.
Dwarfed by her 12-string, Heynderickx seems genuinely
surprised at the sell-out crowd at 81 Renshaw as she takes
to the stage. Playing solo for over an hour, she outlines her
determination to return to the UK with her band, but even on the
album, the accompaniment is sparse and barely used. There’s
humour here, too. Goofy, kooky takes on life, such as in The
Bug Collector, where she personifies “the praying mantis in the
bathtub” and “the millipede on the carpet”. “The fucker’s out to
gets you,” seems incongruous against such a fragile guitar line,
but it certainly makes us smile.
Drinking Song, a bluesy stagger, is reminiscent of Karen
Dalton’s scratched folk-blues vocal twists. As its name suggests
it’s a woozy, late-night tale. The people and places, and the slow
release memories of a night’s drinking. It feels apt in the tightly
packed quarters of 81 Renshaw, and the crowd hang on every
word. The dynamic leaps of Worth It, another album highlight,
sees her moving swiftly between ethereal country-flavoured, part
whispered melody, to rockier, heavier sections and back again.
The melody dancing around itself, turning, twisting. It’s a song
about the study of self. Introspective, critical, but hopeful.
After a stunning cover of Blues Run The Game, by the
brilliant and tragic Jackson C Frank, she ends the set with a
mesmerising version of Oom Sha La La, which is probably I Need
To Start A Garden’s most perfect pop moment, with a catchy-asyou-like
chorus prompting a singalong from the crowd. It sees her
resolving to throw out the sour milk, stop worrying about the gap
in her teeth, to regroup, start again, stop judging herself and, yes,
to start a garden.
Haley Heynderickx is a writer and performer of real depth,
who keeps a healthily ironic eye on life and the challenges and
opportunities it brings. Everything in the garden should be rosy,
and on this indication, it will be for some time to come.
Paul Fitzgerald / @NothingvilleM
40