Pelican + Torche @ Engine Rooms, Brighton - Friday 12/09/08

Originally published in Beat Motel issue 9

Torche have kinda exploded into my world recently, originally thanks to Lee Culture for lending me their E.P then due to Hydra-Head picking them up. I reviewed their latest album ‘Meanderthal’ in the last issue of Beat Motel so I won’t go into too much detail regards their sound, suffice to say they have what (much like No Use For A Name) are really smart pop songs, just played in a different style.

For all their crushing heaviness Torche are utterly accessible and ear-friendly on record, live they lean more on the side of crushing heaviness rather than melody. The more tuneful tracks on their album were largely left out tonight in favour of some sort of competition to be the loudest, lowest, most demolishing band ever to play Brighton.

It was a bit of a shame in my opinion, the hordes of Pelican fans here tonight will have only gotten a very one-sided view of a very clever, diverse and memorable band. That being said, fuck me they were heavy! This is the first gig I’ve been to with earplugs and without them I probably would have been retching from my vantage point next to the whopping base bins of the PA!

Pelican never disappoint me, I’ve seen them many times and it’s the tiny ‘intimate’ gigs that really thrill me. They’re still great on the huge stages I’ve seen them in, but in somewhere as dingy and stifling as the Engine Rooms their sound booms and swirls around the room in an almost visible way.

Pelican create enough of a soundscape (sic) on stage that vocals just aren’t needed; the duel guitars singing more complex layered tunes than a mere human voice could ever manage. Tonight was something of a greatest hits show, with three albums and a slew of E.Ps under their belts this is a band with a lot of material to choose from, each album a progression from it’s a predecessor, and yet there were still plums yelling for first album grindfest tracks.

What amused me (in the most horribly elitist way) is that when Pelican played an obscure track from their oft unheard first E.P these fucking scene jockeys just looked at each other blankly, hah!

Suck on that fuckers, you got out-obscured by the band! One odd thing I noticed tonight was the sheer number of people using flash on digital SLRs, I don’t go to many Brighton gigs so I have no idea if this is normal or not.

I had a photo pass so grabbed some shots sticking near enough to a self-imposed ‘three song rule’ so as not to irritate either the band or the crowd with flash work, but everyone else flash flash flashed their way through the entire set, often muscling their way to the front of the crowd using elbows and standing right in the fucking way.

In my opinion photographers should be pretty much invisible, the majority of the crowd is there to see the band, not you showing off your birthday present! Get what you want in the first three songs then fuck off and let the band and the audience get on with the show unhindered! In the case of Pelican three songs is TONS of time!