Crystal Castles Live Review

Crystal Castles at the HMV Institute, Birmingham

Group vocals, souring choruses and head banging guitar solos can all be expected from talented London trio Luls. Favorable singles ‘Young’ and ‘Swing Low’ prove to be hits amongst the approving crowd at the HMV tonight, showing off the bands potential and already existing success.

The audience tonight displays an overwhelming (and slightly manic) excitement towards the Toronto twosome on tour with new album (|||). Demonstrating their admiration with restless chants and giant grins; by the end of the night, it isn’t hard to see why.

Setlist opener ‘Plague’ spells the room with a demonic air as the menacing thumps and shrieking- high vocals cut through the venue by lively front woman Alice Glass. Crawling on all fours cloaked in black, Glass resembles that of an exorcist- yet fans approvingly pump their fists, fixating their glance onto the petite silhouette camouflaged by smoky red flashlights. The effect is utterly thrilling.

The energy remains perfectly unrigged throughout the performance and radiated with higher intensity by band partner Ethan Kath; who coolly plays his keyboard, barely lifting his head to acknowledge the chaotic surrounding. Glass endlessly dives into a sea of arms, drinks and smokes freely onstage clearly stating she enjoys doing exactly as she pleases.

Crystal Castles eminent mixture of goth-dance and spacey electric, lo-fi triggers emotional boundaries that dance music has failed to accomplish in the past. Although the live shows aren’t for everyone, they are undoubtedly hard to forget.

Good Kid Mad City

Pocketing numerous Mixtapes, successful EPs, a staggering number of hits and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music, Kendrick Lamar has now stunned the hip-hop scene further with one of the finest albums of the year. Compton bred rapper carves out a breakaway style of his own with Good Kid M.A.A.D City; making the lingering wait for the debut album unquestionably worthwhile.

Subtitled as ‘A Short Film by Kendrick Lamar’, listeners are taken on a journey through the city that raised him. Layered with storytelling lyrics and nourished thickly with bedroom kickback beats, the talented rapper fails in hesitating or shying away from any personal experiences, throttling fans head first into his history with the tellingly, unfolding series of his formative years.

The adequate 15 track album begins with somewhat haunting ‘Sherane A.K.A Master Splinter’s Daughter’ that opens with a recited prayer by Lamar’s friends, before Lamar himself tells of a love story with Compton sweetheart Sherane. ‘Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe’ embraces his development and changing mind, backed again with mellow, electric guitar riffs complimenting his swift and slick wordplay and revealing his impeccable, deeply thought-out lyrical strength.

‘Backseat Freestyle’ produced by Hit boy is one of the more upbeat tracks of the album, offering a more aggressive and party- dynamic ambience constructed with fun, bold spits fans will enjoy on a night out- whilst ‘The Art of Peer Pressure’ invites us into his gang activity, as he luckily escapes a police chase with friends. ‘Poetic Justice’ is composed around Janet Jackson’s classic hit ‘Anytime Anyplace’ with input from fellow elite lyricist, Drake. A smooth and sultrily sexy vibe is fashioned, highlighting it as an album favourite before it ends with a confrontational gang argument first heard in opening track, outside Sherane’s home.

The last quarter of the album introduces supplementary likely favourites with ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’, ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’ and ‘Real’ that finishes with a voicemail from his parents who define the meaning of realness, before accepting the advice and teaming up with Dr. Dre to proudly sing about his city ‘Compton’ self pro-claiming; ‘aint no city quite like mine’.

Although the album is assembled in an un-chronological order and the communication between his family and friends is sometimes indistinct, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City provides a clean and apparent account of who Kendrick Lamar is and how his hometown has shaped him- making it a cinematic success and more importantly- a refreshing breakthrough in hip-hop, adding classic depth back into the substance and hailing it undoubtedly worthy of its critical attention, ability and success. 

Azealia Banks Live Review

Hip Hop’s ever changing mores were taken a step further last September when fiery Disney princess-like character, Azealia Banks rocketed charts worldwide. Yet her self-given nicknames ‘Yung Rapunzel’ and ‘Bambi’ are a distant fairy-tale truth in comparison to her playfully crude wordplay and aggressive hip-hop spits. Judging the thriving crowd at Birmingham’s HMV tonight- this is exactly why they adore her.

Zebra Kat’z attentive presence teamed with Njena Reddd Foxxx’s sassy swag, breezily vamp up the crowd with a humorous and somewhat raunchy performance. Exotic gymnastic moves, catwalk mimics and mouthfuls of colourful language, the fierce New York rappers successfully finish their set with notable single 'Ima Read’. DJ Cosmo presents a vibrant half-hour set until the Harlem rapper takes to her stage.

Bouncing from track to track sporting her million dollar smile and Swarovski glowing bra, Banks thrust’s herself into a throttling flow that seemingly paces at a hundred miles per hour. The compressed 40-minute show switches from Fantasea mixtape and 1991 EP, highlighting Liquorice, Esta Noche and 1991 itself as crowd favourites.

‘This song may be the reason you all came out tonight’. Sparing no time, the crowd are launched into a sky-high frenzy as breakthrough single ‘212’ begins and fans thrillingly grasp the opportunity to chant the most offensive yet enjoyable lyrics in music so far.

Goodnight Lenin Live Review

The excitement bustling in the crammed room of the Hare and Hounds is hard to snub as Birmingham band, Goodnight Lenin are back in their hometown for an exclusive one night only gig. Gushing fans bearing cheesy grins and cold pints know they’re in for a treat as they gather to the front of the stage for the special evening.

Support act Mellow Peaches bring warmth to the room performing wholesome and hearty acoustic tracks to the brimming audience. They respectfully settle their enthusiasm and display gratitude to the duo’s efforts till their headlining heroes appear.

 A note is yet to be played but the delighted audience cheers regardless as Goodnight Lenin take to the stage with a thriving track list of past EP favourites, as well as introducing latest material from upcoming album with opening track; Laughter from a Younger Age.  The golden five some happily chat to fans with grounded confidence, charming everyone with plenty of between-songs banter and appreciative ‘thank yous’.

A tightly polished and high-spirited performance is dished out, reminding the audience how much the down-to-earth Brummie lads have blossomed since their YouTube kitchen kickback days, surging them head-first into unstoppable folk-fanatic success.

Goodnight Lenin Interview

Goodnight Lenin

Birmingham band GOODNIGHT LENIN make a welcome return in their home city this weekend with a headline show at the Hare & Hounds. With a new single, EP and their debut album in the pipeline, frontman John Fell tells Ivy Photiou why the time has come to show what they are really about.

“We were going out on the road ourselves and it was slowly spreading around the country, but to go on tour with someone like Beth [Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny] and performing in front of 400 people just after her album release and appearance on the Jools Holland show was an amazing expe- rience,” says frontman John Fell, reflecting on their numerous musical highlights from the past couple of years. “We did Moseley Folk festival in 2010, so going back this year to hopefully play on the main stage is a great pleasure, especially at an event like that.”

Squeezed into their bustling and seemingly never-ending touring schedule is an exclusive, one night only gig at the Hare & Hounds especially for their hometown fans. As Birmingham’s music scene flourishes with national acclaim greeting the likes of Peace, Swim Deep and Troumaca, John insists coming back to perform in Birmingham is more exciting than ever.

“It’s the most enjoyable thing,” he says. “We don’t play so often in Birmingham and we’ve done it on the basis of making sure each show is special, such as playing at the cathedrals and churches at Christmas [Goodnight Lenin performed sell-out shows at St Paul’s Church in 2010 and Birmingham Cathedral in 2011]. It’s great that Birmingham has these bands with different sounds and when you throw us into the mix as well it shows that there’s diversity — which is what this city is all about.”

Even between all the touring and EP releases, John takes great pride in revealing that the long talk of a debut Goodnight Lenin album is finally true, which thankfully seems to be just in the nick of time as he confesses fans were beginning to feel frustrated (“Which is why we chose to do the Hare & Hounds too, before we get shouted at!” he jokes).

“In October we’re releasing another single and video, December we’re releasing a winter type EP and between all that we’ll be recording our album which should be out in March next year. We’ve finally found the way we like to record now, based on a 1970s ‘playing live’ style. It will be a thicker American sound like Garfunkel and not really anything like our EPs. A lot of thought has gone into it so it will be interesting to see the reaction.”

For John, the full length album will also be a chance to carve out a breakaway sound all of their own, hopefully free from the lazy folk comparisons which have inevitably followed them, due in no small part to their emergence at the same time as the rise to stardom of modern folk sweethearts Mumford & Sons. Despite their own insistence on being more closely aligned with the likes of Elvis Perkins and classics such as Bob Dylan, John says their own album will be a chance to show what they are “all about.”

“Yeah, I think when a band is playing live and releasing the odd track, people aren’t going to get the full picture of what they’re all about. We ended up shooting ourselves in the foot by releasing the most Mumford & Sons-type songs. For some unknown reason we’ll listen to our music in the studio, agree on what we sound like and then end up not releasing it! But that’s exactly what the album is going to do. It will be a collection of songs that are exactly all about us and hopefully stop any more misleads.”

Their live shows, dashed with humour and plenty of between-song banter, and down- to-earth manner leave audiences relaxed and engaged and behind their fruitful success so far still lies an honest, earthly manner about Goodnight Lenin as they continue to set their standards high with admirable future goals, ensuring that more harmony-soaked, toe tapping, folk fun goodness can certainly be expected.

“The perception of us is quite strange sometimes; I think people think we’re a lot bigger than what we are,” John says. “Nothing but hard work goes into what we do with 14 to 15 hours a week outside work. We put a lot of effort into what we do. In terms of where we are now, I don’t think we’ve even started yet. We’ll always be trying to change and improve ourselves. Our goals next year are to mainly get the album out and just be happy with it, to play a sell-out show in Birmingham and hopefully push ourselves further into bigger festival slots with the help of the album. Just writing good music too.”

Mac Miller Live Review

Mac Miller Live at HMV Institute, Birmingham

Seven mix tapes deep and a freshly released studio album; Mac Miller has radically blossomed from small town local sensation to internet extraordinaire, pocketing impressive eight figured views on YouTube and an extremely adoring fan base along the way.

Miller explodes onto the stage with opening song ‘Blue Slide Park’. Taken aback by his incredibly energetic stage presence, hysteria is caused amongst the overexcited young crowd as Miller continues cascading them into a high tempo, dumb fun, party frenzy.

Even with a slight sound glitch that unluckily occurs in the middle of hit single ‘Loud’, Miller coolly controls the dislike by playing classic audience games and entertaining them with his zesty wit, until the technical fault is overcome and cleanly forgotten.

Demonstrating his diversity and impressive knowledge of the Hip Hop genre, Miller pays tribute to declared childhood inspiration- late Beastie Boy member MCA, adding a feel of togetherness in the room whilst K.I.D.S. mixtape favourites; ‘Nikes on my Feet’, ‘Kool Aid and Cold Pizza’ and ‘Knock Knock’ contextualizes the astounding success the youthful twenty year old already possessed barr an album.

As the show comes to an end, it isn’t difficult to acknowledge why the clone-like fans are so admirable of the street wearing, tattoo sporting, grin bearing kid. Though his music isn’t for everyone with much room for improvement, his electrical stage presence, love for performance, music and his fans are all unmistakably, first class.

The Temper Trap Live Review

The Temper Trap Live at HMV Institute, Birmingham

Touring with a set list full of unreleased material has never been a strategy that can guarantee rewarding results- but Australia’s The Temper Trap has never been a band to shy away from these kinds of risks. In a long shot, it seems to be the band’s motive in finally moving forward from their unbinding label that has lingered around extensively as the ‘Sweet Disposition’ band.

Yet, as their sell out show at the HMV Institute begins to fill with excited fans, it becomes lamentably clear that the highlight of their night will be the band’s long-tail single that has graced TV entertainment since 2009.

Blood red strobe lights swamp the venue as ‘Repeater’ begins averagely. ‘Need Your Love’ also fails to glitch the crowd’s enthusiasm. Third song in and fans are finally able to take pleasure in a song they are familiar with, gleefully clapping in sync to Dougy Mandagi’s fist clenching and heart wrenching sincere vocals to ‘Love Lost’.

Tactically placed older material conjoined with the band’s enchanting and effortless charm kept the set flowing.  Though the new album seems promising, the goofy grins that were triggered by the gig’s final song marking the band’s sweetest days, is yet to be outshined, proving that perhaps their ambling pegged name isn’t such a daunting affair after all.