Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

Big | Brave have been garnering increasing attention with each release, but album number five, Vital, released last year represented something of a breakthrough, not because it was a departure, but the perfect fulfilment of all of the promise shown previously, distilling the full force of their sonic elements into one mighty, megalithic document. Consequently, anticipation for this tour has been getting pretty warm, with a number of UK dates – including tonight’s – selling out in advance.

We’re in the newer, slightly smaller Community Room at the Brudenell tonight, and the room benefits from being wide rather than deep, meaning there’s more stage to be in front of, and first to tread the boards are Leeds noisemongers Thank, who are no strangers to Aural Aggravation, And it’s Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe’s second time on stage at the Brudenell in just four days, after his turn with Beige Palace supporting Mclusky on Friday. While the two bands do share some similarities, Thank are very much of the noise-rock persuasion, with the emphasis on noise, and they’re straight in with some twisted shouty funk noise that collapses into a maelstrom of noise.

Thank

Throughout the set, there’s a lot of feedback and a lot of noise, and it’s remarkably heavy in places. It’s typically Leeds noise rock par excellence. The current lineup is something of a supergroup, and there are so many personalities in one band: Steve Myles’ tom-heavy drumming is hard but also nuanced and his technique is fascinating to watch, and only Theo Gowans would play a bank of FX with a spring and a fork, and Freddie manages to scoff a few crisps between songs, too. Penultimate song is new, ‘Dead Dog in a Ditch’ is Fall meets Sonic Youth meets Blacklisters, while the closer, ‘Dread’ is pure Fall, Leeds style, with a bass riff reminiscent of ‘Blindness’ while Freddie hollers on that ‘there’s never been a good band from London’. It’s chaotic and discordant, but also quite wonderful.

Fågelle proves to be an absolute revelation. An understated presence, her music combines trickling ambience and screeding noise swirling around the most delicate of post rock… But when the distortion kicks in, things get heavy. She rode out some early technical issues, which were perhaps to be expected given the mountain of pedals, seemingly unphased. The setup appears to be a combination of guitar and electronics, and she switched from conventionally-played guitar to using a bow, and paired with an eerie, haunted-sounding voice, the effect is powerful. Towards the end, she Contact mic on throat? The performance hits levels of volume that makes the ears itch, particularly as she builds to a tempestuous finale.

Fågelle

There are no itchy ears when Big | Brave strike up: it’s ear-bleeding in an instant. As someone who likes to get right down to the front to see close-up what’s happening on stage, I find my face melting, positioned as I am with Mathieu Ball’s immense rig just feet away. Fuck! Look at those guitar rigs! The interplay between Ball and Robin Wattie is something to behold; Ball barely strums a single chord during the entire set, instead shredding shards of sculptured feedback from amps the size of tanks, and he does so in the most physical of ways, lurching and lumbering like a wounded beast.

Big | Brave

The setup is sparse, but effective: retina seering white lights are directed forward toward the crowd, and the punishing glare is a fitting backdrop to the trio’s eardrum-busting volume. It’s immense, intense, and powerful, but wouldn’t work as well without Tasy Hudson’s powerhouse percussion, which is heavy and so, so slow. Seconds elapse between beats. Every crushing chord is the sound of breaking. Wattie’s vocals sit somewhere between Bjork and Alison Shaw of Cranes – manic and vulnerable – against the pulverising chords matched by the most punishing volume. Despite the absence of a bass guitar, there’s a gut-gripping low-end churn as they grind out a sound reminiscent of the sawing trudge of Swans circa 1986. My skin crawls and I itch all over. There are no breaks between songs, just more feedback and sustain. Ball and Wattie squeeze more existential pain from their guitars by jamming necks against amps and bending against the headstock: Ball gives a masterclass in brutal guitar work. They don’t speak lest the spell might be broken, and the audience is silent, stunned, awed.

Big | Brave

Time stands still as Big | Brave blast out the most blisteringly intense set: its weight is cataclysmically devastating. This is more than merely music. This… this is transcendental. This is where words fail me. Beyond awesome.