This year’s Rock Sound Magazine “Exposure Tour” intends to showcase three of the most promising new British bands in Dinosaur Pile Up, Japanese Voyeurs andThe Xcerts. Two thirds of tonight’s line-up are more ’90s than a pog-slamming Chumbawumba track, yet it’s the lacklustre filler sandwiched between that sounds most dated.
So when it’s made public shortly before the gig that Leeds’ finest purveyors of rock’n’Grohl, that’s Dinosaur Pile Up, are to headline it feels as though Birmingham haven’t drawn the shortest straw.
This is of course judging by the two support performances from Japanese Voyeurs and The Xcerts that are so far from spectacular the thought of either headlining any gig on this tour could only ever be a massive anti-climax. A lengthy set of dissident dorm room noise pop, the kind you can’t wait to rip to cassette from the disk your mate lent you, is achingly awaited to lift an evening of mediocrity.
Fair play to the Japanese Voyeurs though because they at least looked like their hearts where in it and were more appreciative than perhaps all but two audience members deserved.
The female-fronted five piece has that unhurried tightness disguised in the thick metallic groove Meantime-era Helmet made famous. Buried amongst this and the doomy NIN-poached keys are the contrastingly too frail squeaks of Romily Ellis, who looks and sounds like she’d be blown away if the bass thundered up another notch.
What’s different with Dinosaur Pile Up is that while they too are known for sounds we’ve been familiar with for the better part of two decades, they haven’t forgotten to bring with them the sense of fun that came with writing and rocking out to radio friendly, unit shifting alternative.
Peel back the heart-winning harmonies and middle eight thrash-outs and there’s a similar fragility and innocence in Matt Bigland’s songwriting, but you’d never guess it from seeing them whirl and smash using every inch the tiny stage and their hair-raising bridges permit.
Since replacing two thirds of his band last year there’s an obvious injection of confidence about DPU that isn’t found in their sheepish and lovably naïve lyrics. It’s the same confidence that allows them to say things like “rad!” and “righteous!” throughout their forty minute set without the faintest hint of irony. The fact that it’s not 1993 doesn’t worry Matt and it shows when he can make homages to everyone from Pavement to the ‘Pumpkins sound box-fresh.
All three of the band have dismissed the relentless cataloguing of their sound under “grunge revival” as typically lazy journalism and it’s true. Why does something equally catchy and heavy always have to be filed somewhere within “Teen Spirit” and “All Apologies” and therefore can’t be good in it’s own right?
When you can bash out half an album on a battered Gibson Explorer and can still hear the crowd call for the b-sides and songs off the EP there’s no need for a songwriting adjustment – and proved rightly so in a stomping new track “Should”.
Elsewhere making up for an uneven showcase of new talent were the tired slugs of “My Rock’n’Roll”, the impossibly catchy “Traynor” and the awesome single “Mona Lisa”, with bassist Harry Johns offsetting the main vocal and Mike Shiels‘ adrenaline bomb drums.
DPU pile through their set almost too quickly and even though they themselves don’t threaten to hit top gear, signs of the progressing strain of sharing a mattress in a van, they still outshine the rest of the line-up and satisfy in their (thankfully) headline appearance.
(Daniel Robinson)
