Wolf And Cub, The Mercy Arms, Taught By Animals
Rocket Bar
Fri October 6


I haven't seen Wolf And Cub play for a year. In the meantime, guitarist Joel Byrne has jammed with 2/3 psych band Artax Mission at the Rocket Bar and Joel Carey has drummed for agit-punkers, Pearly Eyed Thrashers and Lindsey Lowhand. Each outside performance has opened up new sides to the Joels and the results have seeped into the body of Wolf And Cub.

Tonight, the first of two nights launching the 'Vessels' album, Wolf And Cub came on strong and didn't let up. Tom Mayhew's bass was more felt than heard, Byrne noodling thrice as much as riffing, to the point where his noodles started sounding like riffs. Meanwhile, Carey and Adam Edwards were ruthless on the drums. The songs from 'Vessels' sounded more natural on stage, the guitar tones meatier, the drums far more fitting in their relentless cascade, but at the same time this meant the songs could go for ages without much change. Ultimately, the hand-eye signals ushered by Byrne, especially to his drummers, did well to serve the band in its quest to rock wholeheartedly until it was time to bust a changeover or to ride that baby out until there was nothing left of the song but mush.

National support band, The Mercy Arms, successfully imitated every '80s guitar band ever, from Cocteau Twins to Duran Duran. It was like watching TV just for the sake of watching moving pictures - no feeding of the brain, just the same characters doing the same stuff over and over. The best thing about it was Matt Hills' mix, bringing out the best parts of the lead guitarist's sometimes-brilliant tone shifts. But, like Michael from Artax said, if anything, these guys played at the right speed.

Earlier, Hills' band Taught By Animals played its biggest ever gig. It was refreshing to see the guys play with natural abandon, just rocking out and having fun onstage without an ounce of self-importance. Like the bands that would play after them, TBA were about the driving drum beat and the pretty guitars, mashed with more frantic wildman vocals and vintage fuzz. They played with energy not unlike Wolf And Cub, though they had more of a grip on the overall sound and were thus less prone to excess.

Tonight I couldn't help but leave deflated though, for I didn't come away with anything I hadn't seen before. For Wolf And Cub, it was a consolidation of the power that has brought it acclaim. But it was not much more than that for me. It was awesome to see Byrne really let go with the vocals and guitar, sounding far leaner in all respects, but like TBA ('90s), The Mercy Arms ('80s), Wolf And Cub, with the long sets and grandiloquence, belong to another era - the mighty '70s. And that ain't a blight on the boys one little bit.

Lenin Simos

Pics: Julie Richards