Culture Industry are an odd bunch. Looking like a collective of geeky school kids, they slowly set the scene for a surprising amalgamation of ferocious drums, brooding bass and pained vocals, bastardised by squalling feedback and slide guitar, almost Goth rock in tone. Occasionally the heavy sound is sweetened by the Melodica used by the singer, touching ever-so-slightly on the weird light/dark side of the Pixies, definitely capturing the spirits of both standard indie Strokes rock and a darker meaner gloomier element.
During Tom Vek's set, I have a guy come up to me and declare 'he's gonna be a superstar…I know it' in no uncertain terms. After his and his band's short six song set, I can see where he's coming from. According to his website, Tom is "a multi-instrumentalist, an incisive lyricist, a musician at home with equally raw, but wildly differing aesthetics." A mix of deliberate off-beats, slick drum fills and piercing bass head up a lad who barely looks out of high school (he's actually 23), moving swiftly into rich vibrant indie dance rhythms. 'If I Had Changed My Mind' is a flamboyant guitar driven number and next song has the Julian Casablancas posturing, the weird edge of Talking Heads with minimum vocal input, 'there's nothing but green lights from here'. Pushing the fast choppy 'in' disco sound with short staccato guitar blasts and exploratory bass, this is an exciting and fresh take on the current sound.
Coming on like the little brother of Razorlight, New Rhodes epitomise the sound of ordinary boys injecting high energy new wave. Focusing less on delivering the sassy sexy angle of their contemporaries, they display a more hard-grafting side of solid song writing. Third song 'From the Beginning' moves down to a simpler structure encompassing 80s beats with a universal joyous chorus - setting the tone for epic perceptions of indie love songs, earnest, delicious, building up stamina & by mid-set the energy is transferred onto the crowd through bouncy and bittersweet melody and jittery double timed beats. There seems to be two conflicting thoughts on this band - on one hand we have the feeble bleats of 'they're just Strokes copyists' and on the other we have an ever-growing volume of support who are looking past the haircuts. And when we have a gig that finishes on giant power bursts of guitar, high-knit melody fused into a delectable ass-shaker, floor stomper farewell, I'd say the latter opinion may win out yet.
