Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

As gig clashes go, Unsane and Godspeed You! Black Emperor playing on the same night – and both promoted by The Brudenell, while there’s Wu Lyf in the second room, it’s a big one – and on a Thursday night, too. A few people I know jumped at Godspeed before Unsane were announced. I’d demurred on account of my dislike of the O2, and it proved to be the right choice… because it’s the Brudenell, for a start, and the lineup got better as the date drew closer. Hard to believe, perhaps, but true.

Is it possible to go to a gig in Leeds with local acts from the noisier end of the spectrum on the bill without Steve Myles being in (at least) one of them? The evidence suggests that it is, but it’s rare. Tonight, it’s grindcore power-violence duo Pleb, with Myles drumming and growling who are first up. They fill the space between songs – while Steve gets his breath and adjusts his kit and wanders around seeking to locate nuts which have flown free of their cymbals – with squalling noise and feedback. With the guitar split between two amps and what appears to be some contact mics running straight to the mix desk, the noise is not only phenomenal for a two-piece, but the noise they make is utterly filthy, and they’re great fun.

Pleb

The Shits live is almost two acts sharing a stage: the three guitarists, bassist, and drummer drive away at a simple repetitive riff for four or five minutes, with their heads down, keeping it tight and focused, while the singer comes on like a cross between David Yow and Johnny Rotten, sneering, snarling, swilling and spilling beer over himself and the crowd, and generally playing up the part of confrontational front man, goading the audience and being antagonistic. There’s a lot of punk performance going on here: charging into the crowd and nabbing their drinks, tossing empty and not-quite-empty cans and pint post into the audience, who in turn lob them back while charging back and forth in front of the stage in some kind of slam-dance / gumbys / silly walks mayhem. Some of it’s mere posturing, to be sure, more mock dangerous than actually dangerous, and nothing about their performance is remotely sophisticated, but in terms of straight up entertainment, they bring it.

The Shits

Spectacularly punky and stroppy and fun as they were as a support, a vaguely amusing headline would be that Unsane pissed on The Shits. The Shits mocked the number of older guys present – the baldies, the ‘type tow diabetes’ – which is fine, they’re young and brash and twatty – but Unsane’s Chris Spencer is, I’m guessing, pushing sixty, and has more than twice the energy of most bands a third of his age, and has no need to play on the attitude when kicking out music this abrasive. Unsane have always delivered a different shade of noise, a different kind of abrasion, and done so with brute force.

It’s been a long time since Unsane last graced Leeds with their presence. Tonight, they take to the stage to Bauhaus’ ‘Dark Entries’, singing along as they tune up, introduce the set with a succinct “Fuck Tump!” and then get straight down to business.

The current lineup has been in place since their return in 2021, with ex-Daughters drummer Jon Syverson (who likely found himself unexpectedly available in 2021 following their splitting under shit circumstances) and Eric Cooper on bass, but you would be forgiven for thinking they’d been playing together a whole lot longer. The tightness is stunning, the camaraderie a joy to watch, Chris Spencer and Cooper jostling and bouncing one another around the stage as they churn out riff after riff after riff – the exuberance leading to Cooper’s glasses becoming a set casualty towards the end, which resulted in some tuning difficulties on account of not being able to actually see his tuner.

Unsane

They’re a quintessential US noise -rock band, cargo pants and T-shirts, and absolutely zero posturing, but all the energy: they attack every single song with the same level of zeal. Their setup is minimal: Spencer has only five pedals, and one of those is a tuner, and one triggers weird reverbiness from the amp itself. As such, the texture amidst their relentless wall of noise is all produced by technique, with no small amount of neck-bending and guitar punishment involved.

At one point, for no apparent reason other than I was in the front row, Chris Spencer leaned forward and reached out to shake my hand and asked how I was doing. I was probably wearing my concentrating face as I was surveying his pedals. I was doing good for simply being here, but in that moment, my rating shot to great with the affirmation that these are decent guys, and as is so often the case, the harshest of music is a pressure tap, a vent.

Unsane

The Shits fans who had been going berserk during their set are soon sold, too, with a healthy mosh pit and some stage diving going on, and the energy loop between band and audience is not only complete but builds throughout the set.

They play a large portion of Occupational Hazard, the recent remastered reissue of which they’re promoting, but also drop in tracks from across their now-lengthy career. And yes, they play ‘the hits’ – raging renditions of ‘Against the Grain’ and ‘Scrape’. The student contingent who were losing it to The Shits are absolutely going off it in the face of this, and that’s all to the good.

The encore isn’t really an encore as Spencer loiters at the edge of the stage, tuning, while the other two nip off to towel down or maybe pee after sinking a few cans, returning to power into a bruising rendition of ‘Only Pain’, and… woah.

Sometimes, words are a challenge. And what Unsane achieve with their sound – harsh, abrasive, heavy, but not in a metal way, and with groove – is achieved not through variety, but a certain monotony – is to hit that rare sweet spot where the songs form one great sonic mass that stuns one to silence.