First up, Post – a new band. Although, they’re already part of the Creeping Bent Organisation and maybe something of a supergroup, consisting of ex-members of Bricolage, Colon Open Bracket and Mother and the Addicts. Wow, this sounded like a band that were established for some time, maybe doing a singles tour. Every song oozed with pop chart potential. It didn’t let up. No down points, no fillers, just frantic ‘Moon-esque’ drumming keeping a rigid backbone throughout. Then, overlayered with great keys played by a very young-looking chap who played a mix of top line melody and warm pad sounds accompanied with his own smooth backing vocals.
At the front dominating the stage was a man I recognise, Graeme from Bricolage. I must have seen these guys way back maybe four years ago at Stereo. Although then the lead guitarist, his progression to frontman here seemed a more than wise move as he intertwined blues rock style guitar, but modernised in a way you’d possibly see with bands such as 1990s or even Queens of the Stone Age. His vocals sat on top like a young David Byrne, and the very fact he played such intricate guitar simultaneously with immensely catchy, almost chanting vocals was highly impressive. This is an outfit to watch out for. They charmed the crowd and they sure charmed me.
Second. I was drawn to this show at The Admiral after watching Egyptian Hip-Hop at The Captain’s Rest some two months back. Where I stumbled upon Fiction Faction – a band I’d never heard of yet enjoyed to the fullest. Well, tonight they really put in a performance worth braving this horrid weather for. The set started with this strange but lovely instrumental, building and building until blending into their track ‘Apparitions’. Now I’ve been listening to this song a fair bit online of late and always followed the 17Seconds blog, where just this week I was delighted to read these guys will be releasing the track as a single with them.
Anyway back to the show. The front man, David (I believe), was virtually saturating the front row with his own saliva. The sheer venom from this guy is very watchable – his vocals cutting between fast delivery and really quite sweet melodies. Especially halfway through their set when The Keyboard was spun around into action. Their lead guitarist stepped into position to fire the thing up for a song which was haunting and moving – it progressed through some odd chord changes but they worked and it worked. Some incredible bass playing on show here, on this track in particular but also throughout the set, with the bassist really implementing his effects in a way maybe Christopher Wolstenholme would.
The band ended their set with a song being peddled by Radio Scotland’s Vic Galloway just now, twisting and turning between math rock-style verses and grunge choruses. The track’s name escapes me but I like it a lot, and Fiction Faction too.