By Jase Walker
Evidently, I have absolutely zero sympathy for my own levels of exhaustion as only yesterday I just got back from a week away in the Netherlands and I’ve followed it up with an evening of mind blisteringly heavy darksynth. Perturbator’s delayed ‘Excess’ tour is finally here with HEALTH, who blew me away earlier this year at Manchester’s White Hotel, in support. Sadly for the ÜK leg of the tour, Author & Punisher will not be joining which I’m a bit gutted about but can’t have it my way all the time I suppose!
Admittedly, I forgot that HEALTH walked onto the tune of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s opening theme, but somehow that’s one of the less bizarre choices so far this year. Since catching them earlier this year, I’ve been eager to see what they do with a bigger stage and the way they’re sounding right from the outset is certainly making good on my expectations. Certainly one of the more bizarre acts to see live though, as periodically either of the non-drummer members will end up screaming into a microphone, warped through god knows how many effects pedals all for the sake of creating ambient noise to back their music.
‘Stonefist’ is a bit earlier in the set than I expected, the bass for it rumbles through the floor and shakes my legs on another level compared to earlier this year. All those goth and new wave influences of Killing Joke, Gary Numan, Soft Cell are on show with this song. This is by no means a fully defining set of influences for HEALTH who float between genres from song to song, with some more metal or avant-garde than others. At times can be a just fully sonic exploration using their selection of synths, effects pedals and ragging the bass or guitar a bit.
It’s interesting that, similar to last time also, we don’t really get a specific album that they lean on heavily and I suspect this is due to the large amount of collaboration they do with other artists, so their set revolves around more of what they can properly perform live. However, to finish, we get a real treat in the form of ‘Excess’ along with Perturbator coming on stage to perform it with them! What a finish.
It’s been a pretty great set and seeing them do this on a massive stage with a big production behind them adds a real touch of class to their live set but they also work fantastically as a ‘doing noisy music in a dingy venue’ band as well.
Perturbator takes the stage to an intro track that’s got enough of a strong bass drop to make Hans Zimmer blush; it’s genuinely making my arse shake. After seeing these at ArcTanGent back in August, but with a set barely past 30 minutes, it served as a taster for tonight’s set that looks to be well over an hour. It’s clear that the light show has been expanded a ton as well, the backing lights of a pentagram in a pentagon (hah) mixed with various flood lights and strobes makes for a super busy lightshow to go along with the music. The bass hits that keep popping up along the set are shocking at times with how strong they rumble and echo through the venue. Clearly, I’d underestimated how complex the backing lights are as barely further along in the set sees them forming all sorts of bizarre shapes and patterns as well!
‘Future Club’, one of their better known older songs, goes down a treat as well, that alongside the intense lightshow does it justice and as with most instrumental acts we’ve got the crowd singing along the main melody too!
Considering I’ve seen Perturbator a few times, it’s quite noticeable how their live show has shifted away from almost entirely crimson red lighting and use of darkness to a much more dynamic use of colours and patterns. Crowd interaction from bands such as these is much more focused around gestures rather than directly talking, Perturbator are here to bash out all their stuff in the most epic way possible, leaving the audience to figure out what they want to do in response.
Perturbator’s set doesn’t just sound good anymore, it looks good. There’s much more finesse in how it’s delivered, it’s still got all the raw balls it’s always had but there’s so much more to experience in the presentation of it as well as how much material Pertubator has to draw on with these shows. The setlist has been fantastically curated through their back catalogue and has been a solid mix of the big bangers that go hard and more ambient and atmospheric tracks. Ending with returning the favour to HEALTH, Pertubator brings them on stage for the encore of ‘BODY/PRISON’, what a way to finish up!
A brilliantly presented live show that represents the refinement of years of playing and should hopefully be another springboard for even bigger shows in the future.
November has been a solid month for live synthwave. Perturbator has been another great moment of that!
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