aaamusic | On 11, Mar 2012

London, 8th March

Having gone to this gig without any prior knowledge of what to expect, I had a very pleasant surprise. A band with no name, masks of face paint and enough strange instruments to fill a grungy warehouse. Welcome to the Electrowerkz.

 

And if you happen to be a fan of tin whistles and megaphones against heavy guitar and bass alongside half sung, half whispery speech saturated in political alt rock, Antlered Man may be just the band for you.

You’ve got to love a band that denotes the beginning of their live set with Whitney Houston’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ and the comment, ‘we love Whitney… …’s drug habit’ and then starts playing.

Antlered Man’s Giftes 1 & 2 album launch was immensely enjoyable and the band showcased some interesting alt. rock alongside Nately’s Whore’s Kid Sister, who performed in some striking face paint and have a sludge-pop, faintly prog-rock sound to them and are certainly worth looking further into alongside Antlered Man. In Turbogeist’s absence, a nameless band played some catchy pop-rock to start the evening off, although it’s a bit hard to take a band seriously when they open with a song entitled, ‘Your Mother is a Whore’ and comment that if you buy them a shot, then some girl in the audience is sure to show her boobs. Gender equality here we come.

That aside, Antlered Man’s live set was superb, the highlights of the evening easily being the hypnotically catchy single, ‘Surrounded by White Men’ and the bizarre ‘Buddhist Soup’. The former’s erupting baseline and chorus of ‘Daddy buys me anything, presidency, oil company’ make for the perfect single, catchy and clever. It’s easily the band’s signature song. ‘Buddhist Soup’ is a rhythmic sea of guitar and base set off by a bonkers tin whistle hook. Bonkers as it may be, it also sounds brilliant. Damo Holmes also uses an interesting horizontal sliding guitar set up, which works well for their music style.

The diversity of instruments that the band uses makes for a very eclectic and unique style which is missing from a lot of music nowadays, and is pretty much nonexistent in mainstream music at the moment. So is their use of politics in their lyrics, referring to homelessness, drug addiction, etc. And five quid tells you Antlered Man are well worth what you pay to go see them and more.

 

Rose Benge