Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2011 10:20:01 GMT -5
ctrlaltdelete, Opiate, Let Airplanes Circle Overhead, Blastula
By David Douglas
The Brickyard, Carlisle. Friday 7th November 2003
There’s a saying that all of you have heard, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. It’s one of those lines that your mum spouts out, and like most stuff your mum spouts out, it’s bollocks. Just look at the cover of any of Jeffery Archer’s novels, they all look shit and they all, quite literally, read like a bag of wank. So it just goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to your mum, and that you should judge everyone simply on the principle of how they look.
The immediate visage I encountered upon entering the Brickyard was Blastula. Long hair and Fishnets… Metal? Black metal perhaps? Heavy Metal? Rage Metal? It’s definitely gonna be metal right? Bingo! That’s one in the eye for all your mums out there.
The music was fast, the sound was “heavy”, the voice was that of a bronchitis sufferer with a throat full of Velcro. You’ve heard this before right? You’ve heard it all before, and that’s the shame. They’re writing their own music, yes, but it just blends in with all the other bands of this type. The look, the music, the hair. It’s all so stereotypical now, it’s all too contrived.
Lyrically, all your getting is the words “Gwaar!”, “Frooar!” and the occasional “Kwaaar!”, which is fine, but it just blurs the lines between songs, and you soon begin asking “Have they just started again? I thought they’d already done this one”. A friend turned to me and asked “Does he talk to his mum like that at Christmas? MARGHM! GIVE ME SOME MORE TURKEEEAAGGHHH!!”. Blastula, like their name, sadly, felt like a joke, especially when placed next to Let Airplanes Circle Overhead.
There’s a trend brewing up at the moment. Big names are all the rage and everyone is using them, Funeral For a Friend, Secondtolast, Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Most of these word-loving bands seem to involved prog-rock, art-rock or emo (Except Cliff, he’s into his reggae is Cliff). With such a rising trend, bands like this could end up in the same melting pot as poor old Blastula. If you’re not there from the start, then you’ll be constantly be compared and poked at, and soon enough down the line, ridiculed. If you’re not good enough, then you’ll simply fade away while the rest of them rise high above, to a much approved status. Thankfully, there are a cluster of good bands brewing right here in Carlisle, and Let Airplanes Circle Overhead is frankly, one the best.
Their music is like Aphex Twin’s more ambient work flirting with Boards of Canada, who is secretly having sex with Fugazi, who is in love with Aereogramme. It’s a gradual and beautiful exposure to musical knowledge that has created this band.
They’re not without their kinks though, certain songs seemed far too obviously structured, a strange thing to complain about but at times it was a case of “I knew that was coming next”. This, and the fact that their set was, upsettingly, far too short, are the only problems I had with them though. They are fantastically well equipped to come up with interesting and thought-provoking music, and with a little more practise, and a little more brain and maturity, they could produce something incredible.
At times, when the crowd were shouting and screaming at each other “What are you having for tea tonight? I’m having ham sandwiches!”, I just wanted to shout “Shut the fuck up and listen to this!”. But I didn’t. It’d be rude of me to interrupt their highly interesting conversations. Let Airplanes Circle Overhead were by far my favourite of the night. More sir, can I have some more?
Opiate were next and “Ye-who-shall-not-be-named” was replacing the part of the old singer Just Muir, for this live set. Opiate are what you get when Blastula grow up and have a mid-life crisis, then buy a Ferrari and start picking up 16 year old girls and wearing Hawaiian shirts. It’s an evolution like ape to man, therefore it still lives today in a modern society without shoving it’s finger up it’s arse while it’s eating it’s tea.
The guitar is toned and strong, and the band are a sharp, slicing knife, if a little unwieldy. Their music is emotional, but in an almost schizophrenic way, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you. If you’re a schizophrenic yourself, then perhaps both. There’s no sense of lineage, no borders to follow and it may leave some people feeling a little apish. It alienates, but perhaps not in a good way.
The band smile throughout, obviously enjoying their time on stage, and it’s good to see a band do that sometimes. Watching people enjoying themselves, and playing flawlessly to boot, always leaves a warm feeling with the audience.
ctrlaltdelete, the headliners of the night were welcome by a crowd as loud and annoying as Airplane’s. A familiar set for them (though slightly mixed about a bit for variety), and unfortunately too many mistakes in the beginning were not the best start for ctrlaltdelete. Beats and chords were missed through the first few songs and, at times, it felt rushed. They were like young teenage boys rushing their homework so they could go out and get someone pregnant.
It wasn’t all bad, there were times when they sounded genuinely new and fresh, and perhaps it was this slightly twisted direction, a strange and intimate diversion into the unknown (or under-practised) realms that may have put them off. That, and the huge anticipating crowd.
Once the first few songs had passed, they really pushed into their prime with some fantastic new live tracks that let everybody know just exactly what they are, and where they‘re going. The crowd began to stop talking and started watching, people held their mugs and cans of beer in the air to them (albeit intensely insane people) and I realised then why there was such a buzz in the air: the crowd had come here for ctrlaltdelete, they all just seemed to realise it half way through their set.
“We want more! We want more!” the first time that I’ve ever heard that in the Brickyard, and, after the last few songs, it was definitely deserving. What followed was a slightly mis-matched song that worked mainly because the sound mixing was way off, and Ben’s guitar was leading the way. Laura had forgotten the song and decided to improvise, but even then, it sounded better than the beginning stages of their set and let them burn up their reserve energies for an ecstatic crowd.
By the end of the night, those ctrlaltdelete CD’s were selling like red hot choir boys at a vicars tea party, and nobody can deny that, with all the turds floating round in the Carlisle toilet, it’s nice to see a big wad of Andrex cleaning it all up.
I’m not sure if that metaphor makes sense, but I do like it.
By David Douglas
The Brickyard, Carlisle. Friday 7th November 2003
There’s a saying that all of you have heard, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. It’s one of those lines that your mum spouts out, and like most stuff your mum spouts out, it’s bollocks. Just look at the cover of any of Jeffery Archer’s novels, they all look shit and they all, quite literally, read like a bag of wank. So it just goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to your mum, and that you should judge everyone simply on the principle of how they look.
The immediate visage I encountered upon entering the Brickyard was Blastula. Long hair and Fishnets… Metal? Black metal perhaps? Heavy Metal? Rage Metal? It’s definitely gonna be metal right? Bingo! That’s one in the eye for all your mums out there.
The music was fast, the sound was “heavy”, the voice was that of a bronchitis sufferer with a throat full of Velcro. You’ve heard this before right? You’ve heard it all before, and that’s the shame. They’re writing their own music, yes, but it just blends in with all the other bands of this type. The look, the music, the hair. It’s all so stereotypical now, it’s all too contrived.
Lyrically, all your getting is the words “Gwaar!”, “Frooar!” and the occasional “Kwaaar!”, which is fine, but it just blurs the lines between songs, and you soon begin asking “Have they just started again? I thought they’d already done this one”. A friend turned to me and asked “Does he talk to his mum like that at Christmas? MARGHM! GIVE ME SOME MORE TURKEEEAAGGHHH!!”. Blastula, like their name, sadly, felt like a joke, especially when placed next to Let Airplanes Circle Overhead.
There’s a trend brewing up at the moment. Big names are all the rage and everyone is using them, Funeral For a Friend, Secondtolast, Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Most of these word-loving bands seem to involved prog-rock, art-rock or emo (Except Cliff, he’s into his reggae is Cliff). With such a rising trend, bands like this could end up in the same melting pot as poor old Blastula. If you’re not there from the start, then you’ll be constantly be compared and poked at, and soon enough down the line, ridiculed. If you’re not good enough, then you’ll simply fade away while the rest of them rise high above, to a much approved status. Thankfully, there are a cluster of good bands brewing right here in Carlisle, and Let Airplanes Circle Overhead is frankly, one the best.
Their music is like Aphex Twin’s more ambient work flirting with Boards of Canada, who is secretly having sex with Fugazi, who is in love with Aereogramme. It’s a gradual and beautiful exposure to musical knowledge that has created this band.
They’re not without their kinks though, certain songs seemed far too obviously structured, a strange thing to complain about but at times it was a case of “I knew that was coming next”. This, and the fact that their set was, upsettingly, far too short, are the only problems I had with them though. They are fantastically well equipped to come up with interesting and thought-provoking music, and with a little more practise, and a little more brain and maturity, they could produce something incredible.
At times, when the crowd were shouting and screaming at each other “What are you having for tea tonight? I’m having ham sandwiches!”, I just wanted to shout “Shut the fuck up and listen to this!”. But I didn’t. It’d be rude of me to interrupt their highly interesting conversations. Let Airplanes Circle Overhead were by far my favourite of the night. More sir, can I have some more?
Opiate were next and “Ye-who-shall-not-be-named” was replacing the part of the old singer Just Muir, for this live set. Opiate are what you get when Blastula grow up and have a mid-life crisis, then buy a Ferrari and start picking up 16 year old girls and wearing Hawaiian shirts. It’s an evolution like ape to man, therefore it still lives today in a modern society without shoving it’s finger up it’s arse while it’s eating it’s tea.
The guitar is toned and strong, and the band are a sharp, slicing knife, if a little unwieldy. Their music is emotional, but in an almost schizophrenic way, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you. If you’re a schizophrenic yourself, then perhaps both. There’s no sense of lineage, no borders to follow and it may leave some people feeling a little apish. It alienates, but perhaps not in a good way.
The band smile throughout, obviously enjoying their time on stage, and it’s good to see a band do that sometimes. Watching people enjoying themselves, and playing flawlessly to boot, always leaves a warm feeling with the audience.
ctrlaltdelete, the headliners of the night were welcome by a crowd as loud and annoying as Airplane’s. A familiar set for them (though slightly mixed about a bit for variety), and unfortunately too many mistakes in the beginning were not the best start for ctrlaltdelete. Beats and chords were missed through the first few songs and, at times, it felt rushed. They were like young teenage boys rushing their homework so they could go out and get someone pregnant.
It wasn’t all bad, there were times when they sounded genuinely new and fresh, and perhaps it was this slightly twisted direction, a strange and intimate diversion into the unknown (or under-practised) realms that may have put them off. That, and the huge anticipating crowd.
Once the first few songs had passed, they really pushed into their prime with some fantastic new live tracks that let everybody know just exactly what they are, and where they‘re going. The crowd began to stop talking and started watching, people held their mugs and cans of beer in the air to them (albeit intensely insane people) and I realised then why there was such a buzz in the air: the crowd had come here for ctrlaltdelete, they all just seemed to realise it half way through their set.
“We want more! We want more!” the first time that I’ve ever heard that in the Brickyard, and, after the last few songs, it was definitely deserving. What followed was a slightly mis-matched song that worked mainly because the sound mixing was way off, and Ben’s guitar was leading the way. Laura had forgotten the song and decided to improvise, but even then, it sounded better than the beginning stages of their set and let them burn up their reserve energies for an ecstatic crowd.
By the end of the night, those ctrlaltdelete CD’s were selling like red hot choir boys at a vicars tea party, and nobody can deny that, with all the turds floating round in the Carlisle toilet, it’s nice to see a big wad of Andrex cleaning it all up.
I’m not sure if that metaphor makes sense, but I do like it.