Saturday 22 August 2009

Witness To The Beard - Dusk Till Dawn

Officially the finest band name of 2009, Witness To The Beard are a London-based three-piece, I know the drummer off of the internetz.

Dusk Till Dawn is an odd wee venue, in the middle the Archway roundabout. Its a warm night so there's a crowd drinking outside, but inside its starting to fill up for Witness To The Beard's second ever gig. Some day these people will be proud members of 'the Beard Army.

They start off a little grungey I thought, but then it carries you away on a wave of roughed up Kingmaker riffs and Longpigs howling. They've got a rare appreciation for guitar hooks, and the tall bass chap does some neat noodling.

The grunge gives way to some nice warm fuzzy bluesy numbers, like a duvet soaked in hot totty. But the White Stripes cover felt a wee bit flat, aiming to be like the original version when they could have made it more their own.

Then a weird thing happens that catches me off-guard, the guitar and bass players swap round, the drummer swaps round her drum sticks and they start to sound like The Fall.

All shouts and jagged chord changes. Hammering into yer heid like rusty railroad spikes. Its wondeful.

The Beard Army's chanting 'Witness! Witness! Witness!' between songs is strangely infectious.

Some songs come over like The Hector Collectors have grown a set of balls. A final cutdown medley of rock hooks, kind of like the Witness equivalent of !!!!111!!roflcopter!!

Truly they are the future sound of London rock, and one day we shall all bear Witness To The Beard.

1 comment:

hayjane said...

Cheers for this write-up :)

Hayley, WTTB