Tonight:
5°c
Critic rating
, Voyeuristic pleasures of punk menage a trois
Lisa Verrico, London Lite 27 Sep 2006
The Victorian English Gentlemens Club refuse to conform to received English grammar just as their music refuses to be trapped by a particular genre.
Their screechingly jagged, twisted indie strains sound the way Tracey Emin's art would taste if The Pixies cooked it while listening to The Fall and served it to The White Stripes on triangular plates. And it's oddly captivating.
There's something refreshingly ungroomed, unpretentious and playful about the energetic threesome. Watching, you feel like a voyeur in a strangely incestuous love/lust triangle.
Emma Daman leapt atop her drum kit festooned in a formal turquoise dress and held the crowd with a bewitching David Blaine stare as if intent on hypnotising rather than entertaining us. Adam Taylor and Louise Mason sidled together and rubbed their guitars against each other in such a suggestive way that it seemed inappropriate to be watching.
The only hints that they were formed in the pastoral setting of Wales rather than the chaos of London were the backing-vocal "baas" that issued from their lips. Nice to see they'll remember their roots as they reach skywards.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
