Londonist Live: Threatmantics

By Amanda Last edited 180 months ago
Londonist Live: Threatmantics

threatmantics1.jpg
Photo by Amanda Farah
Firstly, apologies to anyone who showed up early to see An Experiment On A Bird In The Airpump who apparently had to pull out at the last minute.

While we always like to mention the London locals (even if they don't make it on stage), the reason we turned out at the Lexington Thursday night was to hear some Welsh boys create a racket. So the evening was, in that sense, a complete success.

The roots-inspired punk folk of Threatmantics came across more on the punk side, or at least there was a lot of guitar noise. But being quite partial to guitar noise, this is a good thing. For a band without a bass player, their music is surprisingly rhythm heavy, and has an odd traditional feel despite the squalls of distortion and the almost frightening aggression with which the drummer pounds his kit (not that he looks aggressive himself - he seemed rather laid-back, actually). It is especially impressive to watch their drummer play his keyboard with his right hand while keeping time with his left. And we like that when you switch off the distortion there are some rather nice and very catchy melodies, and that the viola is used in turn for folksy lines as well as harmonic screeches (John Cale should be proud).

The only complaint to be had is that the vocals and strings got a bit buried in the mix. Clearly the best solution to this would be to get everyone else to sing along.

Last Updated 16 March 2009