Live Review
Menace Beach + Heavy Petting Zoo
The Social, London
January 14 2014
Words & Photos: Linn Branson
Tuesday night at The Social and there's clearly been a buzz building around the show here, and more pertently, its headliner Menace Beach. It may not be their debut gig (that came in February last year), nor their first outing in the capital, but over the course of the last six months or so the Leeds 'supergroup' has been steadily dripping tracks here and there, gaining online zine approval in the process; this week they also launch their EP 'Lowtalker'. With the evening warmed up by the two earlier acts, Sisters and Kid Wave, in the lower bowels of The Social, while punters are biting at the bit in expectation, there is still the main support to lay down their set. And with the Swansea outfit Heavy Petting Zoo, that is not at all an unwelcome thing.
The four-piece knock out an impressive eight-song set that fully displays their range of indie blues post-punk. From single 'Broken Bones' - about breaking bones, no less - with the rattle of guitars via Ben Rodway and Joe Rees, its B-side 'Hunger' that drives punchy chords along, while vocalist Amy Zachariah proves at times alluring, at others coquettish, but always quite fiercely on point.
For much of the time, however, the focus is not so much focussed on stage as it is off it, with dancer Jon throwing dance moves amidst the audience like some latter-day Bez figure. At times interacting with Amy, who plays him like a cat with a mouse, by the time they end on the extended outro'd 'Revelation', the white tux jacket and shirt he started with has been gradually discarded, to leave his upper torso completely exposed to the elements and lascivious punters alike. Ooh, I say.
When Menace Beach start shuffling up to the small area of the room that is known as the 'stage', so too do the crowd start gathering further towards the front in the narrow aisles to either side - and woe betide anyone wanting to get to the loos behind the stage. By the time the five members (dual vocalists Ryan Needham and Liza Webster, MJ of Hookworms on lead guitar, Nestor Matthews of Sky Larkin on drums, Robert Lee of Pulled Apart By Horses on guitar, and Matt Spalding on bass) get underway, you'd need to be employing bribes to get any closer.
Their set when it starts - and despite nine songs, seems to be over before it's hardly begun - becomes apparent that it is based on lo-fi grunge pop, owing much to a 90s influence. Fuzzy hooks and a messs of energy-driven and distorted vocals, intermingle with a little shoegaze here and there. Think The Dandy Warhols and The Pixies to start with. 'Honolulu' where guitars and riffs fly in a psych vein, exerts a typical bass rhythm of the latter. Tracks from their 2012 EP, such as 'Dropouts' with its distorted bass line over a hard drum beat, nestling against Liza's synth strikes; and 'Burn Out', still ravishing in its dizzy pop style, and first single release 'Tastes Like Medicine', a sub-three minute fuzz bomb of vibrant opening - and some hair whipping from Ryan - fit together with material from the just released 'Lowtalker'. Of that, highlights come with lead track, the raptuous pop affair that is 'Where I Come From'; 'Nervous' - performed with a punch that clamours for attention from the background drums - and set closer, the blues-woozy synth and guitar sliding 'Fortune Teller'. All of which prove, as they make their way from the stage on its last notes, that slacker vibes can come equally well from Leeds, as from America's West Coast.
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