Girl Band - Shapes, London 16/10/14

2014 has proven to be quite the year for the Irish (all-male, mind) four-piece. “Lawman”, “The Cha Cha Cha” and “De Bom Bom” have had the blogosphere in rapture with reams of positive press. Most recently, they were delighted to announce they had signed to the prestigious Domino Publishing Co, which will most likely release their début record. And at Shapes, we get a glimpse into the future, as Girl Band perform several new unreleased tracks which, remarkably, may even be better than their previous, already excellent output.

Opener “Um Bongo”, arguably Girl Band’s most playful song, sees Kiely trading his regular screams for a fragile and feeble falsetto. The vocal is almost comic, seeing that it follows an extended opening of industrial guitars and feedback. This fragility however is short-lived as the track then turns towards “Zoothorns”-era HEALTH sonics. Throughout the set, the way Girl Band startle and stun the audience with bouts of feedback and noise is analogous to the way LA-noise mongers HEALTH perform. Similarly, Girl Band shy away from conventional pop structure, and adopt a free-form stance to songwriting. “Nutella” (provisional title) for example furthers the constructs of the exhilarating “Lawman” and “De Bom Bom” to create a 7-minute behemoth of a track, which moves from slow laid-back bass grooves to chaotic sections of feedback, with Kiely shouting “Nutella” into the microphone.

Furthermore, new tracks “My Daughter Paul” and set-closer “Witch Doctor” saw the band play with tempo and dynamics, which constantly caught the audience off guard with their intense sections of feral noise. The former starts with a wobbling bassline before accelerating uncontrollably as Kiely screams “yeah she’s a jet/give her a call/my daughter Paul”. The latter saw Kiely gyrate uncontrollably after firing a stuttering, manic vocal at break-neck speed.

It would be a cliché of course to say that Girl Band are a band "best experienced live”; and actually that statement would be unfair on them seeing as they have done sterling work to transmit their live energy into recordings. But the live setting highlights Girl Band’s most unique and vital strengths. First of all, the songs just sound louder and more aggressive. Beat Happening cover “I Love You”, benefits from a wall of distortion, while Blawan cover “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?” is turbo-charged even further. Even “De Bom Bom”, “Heckle the Frames” and the epic stomp of “Lawman” have added gusto. Secondly, even through the racket Girl Band create, their music is wonderfully danceable. While several acts ham-fistedly add synthesizers and drum machines to guitar music in order to convey some form of electronic influence, Girl Band deconstruct the concepts of minimal techno and apply them to post-punk and no wave. They use noise and feedback like samples and loop grooves and sounds to hypnotic and hip-shaking effect.

In the same week that a band as insipid (in this writer’s opinion) as Royal Blood announce a massive UK tour in support of their eponymous debut, Girl Band complete a tour, which if their performance at Shapes is anything to go by, has terrified and excited audiences in equal measure across the land. But the commercial success of an act like Royal Blood provides an interesting conundrum regarding the state of guitar-based music. For if we are truly led to believe what we are told, guitar-based bands are seemingly set to reclaim their mantle within the public’s consciousness, with Royal Blood leading such a movement. However, history has taught us that it is the acts that rebel against sound and image that truly arouse and inspire movements. And while Royal Blood and Girl Band operate in vastly differing commercial and artistic circles, it is the visceral noise that Girl Band create that acts as the true rebellion – a rebellion against a vast number of musical constructs and ideas of influence. And it is this form of rebellion that will truly inspire any form of guitar-based resurgence. Unique in comparison to the plethora of guitar-based bands around them, Girl Band’s music is unruly yet controlled; and aggressive but in a way beautiful. They deserve your full and fervent attention.