By Jase Walker
Whenever I’m offered the chance to go see a bunch of massively complex and busy music, there’s absolutely no way that I could possibly say no to that. Tonight’s show at The Peer Hat, a small and relatively unknown pub in the backstreets of Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Poly-Math, Codices and Lake of Ayes play an intimate show.
Codices are tonight’s opener, a quiet entrance by many respects but they get right into it with their fantastic instrumental mathy post-rock sound. I’m an absolute sucker for this kind of stuff, it’s not really the type of music you go absolutely wild at, but more of a ‘take a step back and absorb the intricacies of what’s being played’ type thing. The busy drums, the fat bass matching it, and guitars that bounce off each other creating far reaching soundscapes that eventually build to an epic crescendo.
The size of the pedalboards for each guitarist is obscene, I mean I suppose it comes with the territory given the sort of layering these guys are doing not just on each song, but each passage. A friend of mine taps me on the shoulder showing that she’s already whacked them in her Spotify list and I really don’t blame her, there’s a solid variety of different influences on show here and they ebb and flow between quiet parts before hitting back with massive finishers that are worthy of a good old fashioned headbang, top stuff.
Second tonight is a band I actually didn’t know were on the line-up until seeing the stage times, A Lake of Ayes. A quiet atmospheric intro leads into heavy thundering chugs. If I had place this, I’d say post-metal? Either way I’m keen on hearing more because this has my attention. It’s interesting to see this sort of music, the only other band I know of that fits this is Curse These Metal Hands (a Pijn and Conjurer project).
If you’re into music that’s atmospheric but also goes hard then these guys are definitely worth checking out, it’s a fascinating deconstruction of metal’s elementary parts. A minor hitch with the Bass is sorted out quickly which doesn’t marr the set too much, it’s good when a band can recover quickly from these sorts of issues in the middle of a live set. On the whole, I am smitten for a band that creates this sort of atmosphere along with soaring melodies that just absolutely *rag the shit* out of a reverb and delay pedal, and these guys really scratch that itch.
Admittedly seeing Poly-Math’s set up, I feel a bit under prepared, I didn’t know these guys had a sax player! The intro begins and I can feel the excitement building. I have legitimately no idea what to expect here but I know for a fact this is going to be bloody interesting.
Even after the first song I am lost for words, the sax complimenting the guitars playing and there’s just so many moving parts for this band it’s honestly hard to keep track of what’s going on, but in an overwhelmingly entertaining fashion. I’m honestly kicking myself for not checking these guys out sooner, but this is proving to be an amazing introduction though!
The discordant melodies, the busy rhythms, the cacophony of it all, there’s always something to fixate on, were barely two songs in and I genuinely find it hard to put into words just how much I’m into this!
Partway through, something happens that I have legitimately never seen happen at a gig before, some guy walked in with an art book and a chair, sat at the front and is sketching the band as they’re playing, I have photo evidence to back this up. In between listening to Poly-math pull off some of the most insane sorts of layering I’ve heard a band do and watching this guy speed sketch the band as they’re playing, it’s all adding up to a gig experience that I know for a fact I’m going to be talking about for years after this.
This whole show has been an introduction to three bands that all in their own right are artisans at what they do. Who’d have thought that a Monday night at a small pub venue in Manchester could quite be a revelation in its own right as far as music goes?
All three bands absolutely brought it, and they’ll no doubt be entries in festivals and other shows I’ll see in the coming years that I’ll be feverishly telling anyone who’ll listen that they need to see. What an absolutely stellar show.
- The tour continues at The Outpost in Liverpool tonight (Thursday 28 October) and Paper Dress Vintage in London tomorrow (Friday 29) before finishing at The Pipeline in Brighton on Saturday.
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