Jeniferever, These Monsters, Iliketrains @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

PHOTOGRAPHY:
BART PETTMAN

Last minute additions to the bill, Iliketrains opt to go stripped back and acoustic. Without their usual bombastic flourishes they revert to a gothic, brooding melancholy centered round singer David Martin’s trembling baritone.

The sharp click of the solitary drum propels an emotional rendering of ‘Fathers Son’ that draws latecomers steadily closer. Keeping things tantalizingly short, Iliketrains offer a brief glimpse of things to come.

The air is humming by the time Leeds wayward sons These Monsters reach the stage. Despite the departure of their saxophone player Jonny to China they are still terrifyingly noisy for a thee-piece, their jibing riffs penetrating your brain and messing around with your insides. Bound with rage and gaffer tape the instruments get a serious pounding for ‘When the Going Gets Weird’.

Having been holed up recording, they are keen to show off new material, thrashing haphazardly around the stage to the appropriately named ‘Harder and Faster’. Speaking of their darker roots ‘Survivalists Get All The Girls’ lays waste to ears and speakers alike, but lacks the instrumental subtlety of their previous output.



With fans tonight ranging from the devotional to the mildly curious it’s a mixed crowd that greets Swedish invaders Jeniferever. Having perfected the art of the delicate crescendo on albums one and two, their third, Silesia, has been met with raptures by fans and bloggers alike. Suspended in delicate whirls, the airy synths of ‘Dover’ teeter on the edge of atmospheric.

In the past they have been accused of an eerie Zen-like calm and ‘Hourglass’ sounds hollow until the burnished scuttle of the cymbals kicks in. Toying around with afro-beat hooks on ‘Beat’ they break free of their Scandinavian stereotypes and finally they, and the crowd, start to have fun. Suddenly they are a band transformed and as the stuttering drums of ‘Deception Pass’ chop and change direction they surge along with it.



Returning for the briefest of encores they dive into heavier territory, building a towering wall of sound with the shimmering guitars of ‘Ox Eye’, finally seeming unafraid to become the anthemic band their fans long for them to be.