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‘Keep Music Evil’ glows the righteous green-fonted
sticker stuck to the guitar wrapped round the guitarist
on the far front right. The one with the tattoo spiralling
oppressively around his forearm, the one that looks
kind of right (in a borderline emo way), almost like
he should be rocking those thirteen shades of warped
Hades from his customised axe. There are five of them
packed onto that small stage, amongst and at the mercy
of going-on 30 effects pedals, and at one point sporting
a four strong guitar frontline. The rest of them look
for the most part apologetic, like they’re barely willing
to take credit, or indeed the blame, for the wall-crumbling
mesh of white heaviness flying past your cautious ears
in dense chunks. But when what you’re hearing is so
searingly and complexly mathematical you’re not expecting
to see The fuckin’ Hives up there. We’re talking impenetrable
algebra here, not your 2 times table.
It is a slightly different story by the time the misleadingly
quippy-titled ‘Saturday Morning Breakfast Show’ has
brought the performance down to its beautifully smouldering
ruins 40 minutes on, even the bassist is slowly flexing
his knees in rightful appreciation of this. Music this
multi-limbed and ever so subtlety manipulative does
sneak past your defences (even in spite of its blatant
obviousness) and become impossible to ignore, or deny.
It’s music that deals in distraction, for all the stacks
of sound, piled increasingly high as we progress, it’s
miles from an indistinct muddle – each crystal clear
guitar line ebbing a separate wired and hypnotising
path through the rough.
The real intriguing peculiarity up there though, at
the heart of the hard-to-pin-down sprawl, is frontman
Mike Vennart. Inbetween songs he crouches in the boney
child/startled creature combination pose favoured by
Gollum of Lord of the Rings motion picture fame, prodding
at guitar pedals with his spindly fingers, eyes darting
with a nervously frantic haste. But when on his feet,
though no less awkward, he deals in an unforeseen strength,
encouraging wayward chaos and emitting the most suitably
conducting warble. Of course, if Gollum were in a band
he would be in a prog metal band, and Oceansize can
certainly match up there.
Near cousins Muse (the similarities are there for the
untrained ear to hear) are taking it to the arenas next.
Given what we see here they could surpass Muse on any
number of levels given time. They’re heavier, more complex,
equally ambitious, probably more so. Although we spot
nothing as straightforward as a top 10 here yet. Opener
‘Catalyst’ is the literal sound of some vast seismic
shift erupting into unrest. He says “I’ll be amazed
if we make it through this one” before ‘Massive Bereavement’,
you don’t realise the extent to which he meant it until
it’s been dragged thrashing through a tight time vortex
towards its thrilling magnetic climax. All evidence
hints at their stage remaining small for no time at
all. The London venue on the next tour is The Garage
and then after the album drops at the end of September
who knows. The roof will inevitably continue to be blown
off wherever that may be.
Relevant Sites:
Sorry - they were both too terrible to repeat here
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2003©
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