Wintermute / This Town Needs Guns / Situationists – The Library, Leeds, 30/01/09

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There was a thread on the forum recently entitled “Bands you didn’t get right off.” Leeds-based jagged indie fourpiece Wintermute fall snugly into that category for me. What seems like aeons ago, I wrote a review of their set supporting sadly defunct soundscape geniuses This Et Al, and suggested their songs didn’t have enough weight to ever take them anywhere big. Approximately three seconds later, they’d been personally invited on tour by Oceansize, and the entire country was salivating at the very thought of them. Shows what I know.
Of course, the penny finally dropped. Wintermute’s appeal is an interesting one. Their yelping vocals evoke certain memories of fellow Leodians ¡Forward, Russia!, and some of the glistening, angular guitar work falls into a similar category. It’s the same sort of “you wouldn’t think people would be too into this, but they are” sound that has carried a number of bands to relative stardom recently, and Wintermute – to their enormous credit – do it far better than most that spring to mind.

Tonight’s line-up is carefully selected by Wintermute and their ‘team’. Opening act Situationists sound like the twee younger brothers of the ‘Mutes, their guitars jangling and vocals soaring over interesting song structures and major-key progressions. There’s almost an “emo with the distortion turned off” vibe running through the music tonight, something that stretches very much into This Town Needs Guns excellent set. It’s easy to see why there’s been a lot of talk about this Oxfordian quartet, who fall in something of a halfway house between Grammatics and Itch, since the release of their debut album last year. It’s extremely technical – astonishingly so, in places – yet surprisingly dreamy, though there’s a niggling feeling that, with a big chorus, this lot could be something seriously special. Tellingly, their final song – which is more hook-laden than any other in their set – is also their strongest.

Wintermute’s agression helps them stand out tonight. Launching their new single, the ludicrously-titled ‘Dead Or Not, He Was Wearing Sunglasses’, they plough through an incredibly well-constructed set, with choppy guitars to-ing and fro-ing below Dan Howard’s eerily screeched but vulnerable vocals. There’s a drive and urgency to this music that so many of the band’s competitors lack, and the dance-influenced beats provide a number of instant hooks. There are a lot of bands trying this sort of calculated and oxymoronic ‘alt-pop’ at the moment, but Wintermute are quickly proving themselves to be among the front-runners.

Wintermute on Myspace

Photo by Bart Pettman