LIVE: Let’s Wrestle, Warm Brains, Weird Menace and Fists

Let's Wrestle

It’s always a pleasure watching Fists, whether they are smashing their way through a set at the Rescue Rooms, bringing the sunshine at a local festival or playing an intense set in a dark and sweaty tiny room above a café - which is what we get tonight.

Some say that familiarity breeds content, but that isn’t the case with Fists, a band I’ve seen so many times they could call me a stalker. Tonight they re-confirm everything that I love about them. Yes, they’re a little bit ramshackle and seem to be held together by some magical force that stops them from collapsing in on themselves; and without sounding too patronising, it’s part of their charm and one of the reasons why they are so great. They exist in their own little world and like musical magpies cherry pick their way through the last 50 years of modern music wearing their influences with pride. There are bits of rock n roll, garage rock, country and college rock, and with their sound even more dirtier, darker and heavier than before they are really hitting their stride. If they aren’t already, they really should be your new favourite band.

Weird Menace are so new and have only played literally a handful of gigs that they come draped in a fog of mystery. This soon dissipates as they squeeze out a gritty wall of fuzz with the guitarist making her guitar sound like sandpaper scraping against the speakers as the bass and drums grind out tight angular rhythms. There are the usual noise rock references in their loud squall such as Sonic Youth, although Weird Menace have more of an ice cool air about them. Their secret weapon is the bass guitarist who makes her instrument creep around like Peter Hook on tip toes, giving the whole thing an early New Order vibe before they went dance and if they ever attempted to go grunge.

Warm Brains are fronted by former Test Icicles drummer and DIY producer Rory Bratwell, whose yelp immediately reminds me is some places of Peter Shelley, which is more than apt, as the band’s enthused energy and brittle punk sound is reminiscent of early Buzzcocks. Despite their brash sound and attempts to bury their songs in muddy guitars, deep down this is still classic pop music, with the melodies kicking and screaming their way to the foreground through the din of reverb and the clatter of drums. It makes for a very woozy and breezy set that jumps between lo-fi indie that’s a bit shoegazey in places through to 60s style garage jangle. It may seem a bit affected in places, but it’s fun and enjoyable stuff that will make their debut album an essential listen.

Mid-way through the Let’s Wrestle set someone cheekily shouts out for them to “play some Husker Du”, a rather cheeky reference to the fact the band’s obvious reference points are the slacker rock of the 80s and the early 90s. But Let’s Wrestle aren’t a Guided By Voice tribute act, and instead they use this as a loose fitting template for their own brand of raucous and spirited lo-fi indie rock that’s played with the passion of a band who mean every last second of it. They sound big too, possibly as a result of working with Steve Albini, and have the potential to bring down the walls around us. For anyone who likes their guitars to be warm and fuzzy and their lyrics dry and full of wit, then this would be your manna from plaid heaven.

Let’s Wrestle, Warm Brains, Weird Menace and Fists played at The Chameleon on Sunday 31 July 2011.

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