Review Of Barfly Gig 02/06
25/03/2007 By DK
"Carnival of Souls Swat The Camden Barfly..."
The London music scene is a sorry sight, standing much like Ozymandias' shattered visage, a mere vestige of its glory days. Once-upon-a-time the city could proudly boast itself the conception place of the world's greatest musical talent but now, as conception places go, it is no longer the equivalent of the Presidential Suite at the Ritz, rather the piss-soaked alley-way behind the local boozer. All we are left with are the fading sepia photographs of Bowie and Jagger lining the walls of all those clubs and the nostalgic murmurings of old men propping up bars the city over. It is a sad time when we must admit that we are indeed the first generation not to be cooler than our parents. That is not to say there is no hope; there was a flicker of light in the darkness on a damp Friday night in the dying days of February at the Camden Barfly as Trepan Records launched their first gig of 2006, headlining Carnival of Souls.
The crowd was a strange one, not in attendance because NME told them to be, but because of good, old fashioned word-of-mouth. Once you see this band, you tell your friends.
Dr Filth provided the support, teasing and titillating with their perverted foreplay of raw guitar and guttural vocals, leaving the audience, after their bestial performance, wetter than the banks of the lock outside.
Carnival of Souls began with a gentle stroke, lulling the Barfly into a false sense of security with their hauntingly gothic opener 'Palinurus'. One could not resist being pulled headfirst into this twisted lullaby by Gronk's gentle vocals and soft keyboard – image a younger, more handsome Robert E. Smith smouldering with a suicidal quantity of ketamine and you come somewhere close to picturing this truly unique front-man.
But this band do not make love, they fuck – and the handcuffs are on tight.
Immediately any sense of the dulcet is forgotten as the instrumental 'Joy' kicks in with a frenzy of harmonics, Gus Robertson's guitar work almost evoking a sense of the numinous. The audience were taken by surprise as they found themselves instinctively dancing, not moshing, to what is essentially rock music.
The set from here on in jumped seamlessly from energetic rock 'n' roll to the mellow gothic, never fitting into a definite niche, never falling into the generic. Carnival of Souls' originality may well be their biggest hindrance. With British music stuck in a post-Pete Doherty rut, where emulation is rather than talent sells, they have a hard path ahead. It is this originality, however, that makes them so very appealing..
All stops are pulled for the penultimate number 'Disguise the Limit', a rare song of truly epic proportions whose complexity does not overshadow its catchiness. A true pleasure to listen to.
Finally, the bacchic orgy reaches its climax with 'Society of Friends' which, with its mix of pneumatic keyboard and biting guitar, possesses even the most reticent of the audience members with an overwhelming inclination to dance. It is worth buying the album if only to exorcise this song once it has undoubtedly rooted itself in your mind and will not disappear until it has been truly appeased.
Unsurprisingly, the shouts of "encore!" could be heard down the street and we were treated to a bizarre post-coital triste: a cover of the Dr. Who theme. I doubt Tom Baker himself could provoke suck a reaction from even the most hardcore sci-fi fans.
I cannot recommend this band highly enough, if you're as fed up as I am by the unadulterated mediocrity spewed out on MTV and Radio One, of teenagers arguing outside clubs about which one managed to touch Pete more, go and see Carnival of Souls. It is a reassuring thought that London does indeed have some young musical talent. I propose this: put down your trilby hats and skinny ties and help fight to make the British music great once more. It's over to you now...
Adam Greeves
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