Brighton's best...
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NME Tour...
review It’s about that time of year again when the NME collects a motley rotating host of disparate up-and-coming bands and sends them vying for attention all over the UK in a blaze of corporate music-mag-logo-stained frenzy. But the atmosphere is a touch restrained here tonight. It turns out there’s is an alcohol ban in the main auditorium, so the bar is packed with those old enough to stock up on alcohol, leaving most of the venue a playground for hooded tearaways high on tartrazine and cola. Bluewater shopping centre would be suitably appalled.So when The Checks appear most people are still huddled in the bar downing enough lager to make up for not having a drink in hand when the Rakes appear. It doesn’t seem to bother this New Zealand band who tear through a heavily MC5-influenced set. It’s energetic, raw Blues/Rock territory: raspy vocals, loud guitars, 4/4 rhythms - nothing too fussy. Toe-tapping stuff, energetic stuff. Looks are deceptive; Nine Black Alps have had to pull out so we’ve The White Rose Movement as a replacement. Or was it one of those ‘80’s Here and Now tours rolled into one? All New Romantic bleached hair and impassive pouts they sport an Ian Curtis-alike singer jerking his way through a synth/guitar based set that takes its cue from the artier part of the decade. Looks are deceptive: they don’t sound like Duran Duran at all! With more emphasis on guitar and using the synth more as a flourish than a religion they may have lacked a killer song on the night, but they’re not at all bad. Suitable tanked up by now, the audience react well to the quirky, jerky rock of The Rakes. They’re a pretty geeky, nervy looking bunch, all specs and drainpipe trousers, but this belies their sound, which, if a little too redolent of Wire and the Buzzcocks at times, is pretty hard and fast, charged, ragged guitar pop. Unmistakeably English, their enthusiastic, unpretentious front man chats away like your mad uncle at a wedding before introducing yet another three-minute, angular, arty-rock nugget. There’s no encore though and everyone looks a touch disappointed that this really was the last song of the evening. Ah well, the bar’s still open through the doors and those empty hands were feeling itchy anyway.
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