Posts Tagged ‘Benefits’

Polevaulter – Hang Wave

Posted: 24 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

26th January 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Polevaulter haven’t come from nowhere but have, it seems, evolved – or devolved – from a regular band with guitars and a regular drummer, to a brutal drum-machine driven duo, a model which has landed them some high-profile support slots and attention in their own right. Debuting – at least in this incarnation – with ‘HILTSCTW’ (That’s ‘How I Learnt To Stop Chewing The Wasp And Face The Bulldog’) in February 2020, they’ve put out a couple of EPs on tape and CD, both of which have sold out, as well as a couple of digital singles, ahead of this, their debut album, which they performed live for eight hours straight and streamed it on YouTube as a fundraiser for Palestine the other week. It might not have had the intensity of one of their half-hour support sets, but it set out their position politically and as people, suggesting that as much as they’re about impact, they’re also about endurance.

With the exception of the last couple of singles, none of the songs on Hang Wave have been previously released. Hang Wave, then, is no sweeping up of their catalogue to date, but an album proper, and a work which is focused on where they’re at now, not where they were.

It’s a thudding pulsing bass drum bear that drives ‘Mia Goth Made Me Do It’, the first of the album’s ten tracks. It’s tense, and it’s dark: the bass is low-slung and bulbous, but the vocals are subject to really high-treble EQ and some crisp, dry reverb which gives them a harsh edge. This is no gentle introduction: they’re straight in and at the jugular. A mangled, confrontational industrial / goth assault, it makes for a challenging, confrontational opening to an album that’s stark and uncompromising.

Single ‘Trend’ packs snappy (and in places somewhat bizarre) lyrics, with lines like ‘Don’t tell me to put my vase away’ and ‘I do a line off a horses dick’, and stuttering beats, a monstrous bastard of a bass noise and some woozy discordant notes that bend and melt in the incendiary heat of the fire of the vocal ferocity. ‘Pissed in the Baths’, just unveiled as a final taster of the album is another murky morass of dingy post-punk, and as likely to deter more prospective listeners than it will attract. You get the impression that Polevaulter couldn’t care less, and that they’re not doing this to garner popularity, to get played on the radio, for accolades or to get rich or famous – which is a good job: in articulating alienation and also simply venturing, without restraint, down the deepest, darkest, and most obscure tunnels against a backdrop of the most unrefined, angular noise, Polevaulter have pretty much guaranteed they will achieve none of these things. Of course, in repelling the majority, they’re appealing to an extremely devoted minority of people who actively enjoy music that hurts, physically and mentally.

It’s hard to make out what the fuck they’re ranting and raving about most of the time, but the delivery – half spoken word, half hollering – is strong and is a message in itself. Because anger is an energy, and shouting into the abyss is the most exultant catharsis. Polevaulter deliver that catharsis in the bluntest, starkest of manners, and the production accentuates it all.

‘Industry Plant Based’ seems to be a swipe at more than one contemporary issue, and it’s fair to say it’s hard to imagine an act further from The Last Dinner Party.

There are no tunes to speak of on Hang Wave, and choruses are in short supply, too. Perhaps the most obvious and valid points of comparison are Benefits and Sleaford Mods – but whereas the latter bring hooks and groove, Polevaulter present nothing but bleak trudging, and while the former are focused on the channelling of rage with passion and a politically-charged message of unity, Polevaulter bring us blank nihilism delivered with a twist of crushing desolation. There are dance elements in the mix, but the mix is a cement mixer churning away a blend of grit and napalm, and this is nowhere more strongly evidenced than on single cut ‘Violently Ill’, a song so wrecked as to twist your intestines, while the air-raid siren howl of ‘GabWorld’ is chilling and unsettling.

The album winds up in a twitching, glitching, explosive mess in the form of the snarking, sparking, meltdown that is ‘any%WR’.

Hang Wave is harsh. There are no mellow moments, or softer interludes. There is nothing remotely pretty or pleasant about it, either. Outside, a storm rages – the second in as many days, and the tenth since October. The river just a few hundred yards away has burst its banks again. The sound of other people’s recycling rattles past my front door as it bowls down the street, and it’s a potent reminder of the reality and the palpable effects of climate change. It looks very much like we’re on the brink of WW3 s the UK and US dig deeper into their commitment to fire missiles into Yemen; Gaza is all but decimated; Trump looks like he’ll running for president once again, and no-one seems particularly concerned because they’re fretting about how they’ll pay the rent and the next energy bill. It’s a sick, sick world. All of it mounts up and compounds and you feel ill. With Hang Wave, Polevaulter do absolutely nothing to lift the mood or make you feel better, but Hang Wave is the perfectly bleak, nihilistic to these utterly fucked-up times.

AA

HWsleeve

Benefits / Scrounge – The Lending Room, Leeds, 22nd April 2023

Posted: 23 April 2023 in Live
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been quite a week for Benefits. Kicking off an extensive UK tour in the same week as the release of their debut album, which has landed to universal critical acclaim, they’ve come a long way, and they know it better than anyone. It’s small wonder they’re fired up for this return to Leeds, which is where it all started in terms of their journey as a live act, and which has seen them transition from a homespun lockdown project into a national act with a following that’s growing by the day, due in no small part to their formidable live performances.

But to step back a moment and consider the album, of which myself I wrote a suitably efficiently enthusiastic review of just the other day: ‘universal critical acclaim’ is no mere hyperbole. Sometimes, a release by a major artist will receive a set of (very similar) reviews in the major press which almost feel like there’s been some kind of advance agreement on a consensus that this is one of their ‘good’ albums or a ‘return to form’ or whatever, with only one or two outliers, more often than not in more alternative channels. These moments strike as somewhat suspicious, since you clearly can’t please all of the people, even some of the time when it comes to something as subjective as music.

And yet Benefits have defied all of everything with the reception for Nails. Sure, an interviewer for Louder Than War suggested that the album was ‘depressing; and admitted it wasn’t something he envisaged listening to much, but the site’s review was roundly positive.

This unanimity is testament to the band’s unifying message: while some may find the barrages of noise challenging, there is absolutely no denying their sincerity, passion, or the power of the truth spoken in the lyrics, making Benefits THE voice of the disaffected here in Shit Britain. You might think that having just expended nearly a thousand words on the album the other day I’d be all out of words for benefits, but I’m just warming up, because the more I see and hear them, the more I have to say.

As the place packs out and the queue at the bar packs as deep as the clamour for the front, guitar / drums duo Scrounge entertain us with a vigorous set. They’re a pleasant surprise who start out suggesting that they’re ramshackle punkers with a murky distorted guitar sound, before, over the course of their set, revealing that they’re so much more. Unexpectedly melodic, with some chiming guitar tones, they deliver some proper songs with tunes and choruses, and incorporating both acoustic drums and drum pads, they vary the sound and style throughout the set. They’re indie, but with guts, and remind me in places of A Band of Susans.

DSC_6177

Scrounge

Something has changed since Benefits last came to Leeds, and it’s not just the drummer – although Cat Myers is stunning, and her contribution can’t be overstated. This is my third time seeing the band, and the third drummer I’ve seen them with, and Cat really brings a rare level of sonic articulation to the dynamic of the sound. She doesn’t just drum: she drives the colossal walls of noise blasted out by the Major brothers. They’ve never sounded better: the dual-synth noise assault is crisps and clear and subject to perfect separation tonight, meaning the tones and frequencies really hit hard; the bass shakes the bowels while the treble vibrates the nostrils (I take it’s that’s not something only I experience) as they blast through ‘Marlboro Hundreds’: just as it’s the perfect album opener, it’s the perfect set-opener, too, and following with ‘Empire’ again delivers that antagonistic blast of noise and rage that’s utterly flooring.

But as I said, something has changed. They seem more confident – not cocky by any stretch, still as humble as ever – but assured, while the crowd – perhaps there are more here who’ve been swayed by the acclaim – is a but chattier in pockets, which is irritating, but contrasted by the number of people who are shouting the lines back to the stage. There are more calls out, too – not heckling, per se as it’s not critical, but a keenness to engage, bantz (perhaps not best recommended, but indicative of the level of exuberance in the room) and even hands out for high fives (perhaps not best recommended, but indicative of the level of exuberance in the room).

‘Divide and Be Conquered’ delivers a deep dance groove while Kingsley throws rockist mic stand poses, before they take it down a notch with ‘Shit Britain’ with its shuffling beats and splashes of samples.

DSC_6185DSC_6182

Benefts

As I said, the more you listen, the more you discover: they’re not just shouting and walls of noise, and the set’s variety is something that stands to the fore, perhaps more so with the benefit (boom) of familiarity: ‘Warhorse’ is a raw punk, while ‘Council Rust’ is sparse; ‘Thump’ brings a white noise blitzkrieg ahead of a muscular rendition of fan-favourite ‘Flag’, which is utterly devastating.

Kingsley sits, slumped on the drum riser or on all fours between songs later in the set: he pours every ounce of energy and emotion into every line, and while there is clearly an element of performance about a Benefits show, more than anything, it’s about giving it all to every show, every song, every line, every word. This is fucking real. And that’s what people respond to. The music may be aggressive, harsh, delivered right in your face, but it’s unifying.

DSC_6187

Benefits

Hall can barely stand after an extended and ultra-intense rendition of ‘Traitors’, but still just finds the juice for the (not really) encore of ‘Taking Us Back’, which swings into arena rock and which shouldn’t work, but does in fact provide the perfect finish to a set which eschews genre limitations and showcases a band channelling by whatever means, and doing so with colossal force. The experience leaves me too socked in the mouth to wrap up with a pithy one liner or anything smart. Just… fuck, yeah.

Benefits – Nails

Posted: 16 April 2023 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Invada Records – 21st April 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

‘Eagerly-awaited’ and ‘hotly-anticipated’ are phrases which are often tossed about with abandon when it comes to albums, but Benefits’ debut really has had a lot of people on the edge of their seats for months, and it’s no wonder the limited vinyl and less limited CD sold out well ahead of the release.

Their rise has been truly meteoric, but if ever a band deserved to be catapulted from nowhere to selling out shows up and down the country, it’s Benefits, who’ve done it all by themselves and on their own terms, garnering rave live reviews and scoring interviews in the NME and The Guardian and, well, pretty much everywhere. They don’t only deserve it because of their DIY ethic: they deserve it because they’re an unassuming bunch of guys from the north of England (which in industry terms is an instant disadvantage), and moreover, they’re fucking incredible. And it’s not hyperbole to say that they are the voice of the revolution. It’s unprecedented for a band this sonically abrasive to rocket into a position of such widespread appreciation, and even more so when they’re not readily pigeonholed.

Attitudinally, they’re punk as fuck, but musically, not so much: while there are elements of hardcore in the shouted sociopolitical lyrics and frenetic drumming, there isn’t a guitar in sight, not anything that remotely sounds like one. They’re certainly not metal. And you can’t dance to their tunes – because ‘tunes’ is a bit of a stretch (although that’s no criticism). If their subject matter and modus operandi share some common ground with Sleaford Mods – disaffected, working class, ranty, sweary – they’re leagues apart stylistically. Whereas the Mods will joince and jockey and nab the listener with a battery of pithy one-liners, Benefits are an all-out assault, ever bar a sucker-punch of anger blasted home on a devastating wall of noise.

A fair few tracks here have previously been released as singles, although several previous singles, including the recent ‘Thump’ are notably absent to make room for previously unreleased songs, and the sequencing of the ten tracks which made the cut is spot on.

The first, ‘Marlboro Hundreds’, is a massive blast of percussion that grabs the listener by the throat with its immediate impact. Reject hate! Question everything! Success is subjective! The messages may be simple, but they’re essential, positive, and delivered with sincerity and all the fire that cuts through the bullshit and mediocrity. The grinding electronics take a back seat against the drumming, and the vocals are quite low in the mix, but with a clearly enunciated delivery and a crisp EQ they cut through with a penetrating sharpness that really bites.

The album takes a very sharp turn into darker, less accessible territories: ‘Empire’ is a dark, mangled mess of agonising noise, and defines one of the album’s key themes, namely of the dark terrain of patriotism and nationalism which defines and divides Brexit Britain, while warning of the dangers of passivity and blind acceptance of the echo-chamber of social media and the shit pumped out by the government and right-wing media outlets.

Lead single ‘Warhorse’ is the most overtly song-like song in the set. It’s raw punk with electronics, and the one that could legitimately be described as a cross between Sleaford Mods and IDLES, but with a raging hardcore punk delivery. The slouching dub of ‘Shit Britain’ offers quite different slant, spoken word rap groove.

‘What More Do You Want’ swipes at critics of ‘political correctness gone mad’ and the ‘anti-woke’ wankers and it minimal musical arrangement with stuttering percussion renders it almost spoken with an avant-jazz backing, before horrendous blasts of noise tear forth with such force as to threaten to annihilate the speakers. This is Benefits at their best and most unique.

‘Meat Teeth’ is sparse and plain fucking brutal as Hall rants and raves over a growing tide of distortion and feedback. The track packs so much fury that its impact is immense, especially in its tumultuous climax.

Arguably the definitive Benefits cut, ‘Flag’ incorporates rave elements to test through jingoism and nationalistic bullshit, taking down the kind of cunts who voted Brexit while owning a second home in Spain, the monarchy-loving casually-racist flag-shaggers who sup Carling and love an Indian while bemoaning all the ‘coloured’ doctors in hospitals and surgeries, and the Poles ‘coming over here and taking our jobs’ despite no-one else being willing to sweat it out behind the counter at Costa or pick strawberries for less than minimum wage. It’s the same duality of these so-called ‘patriots’ and past generations that provide the focus of ‘Traitors’ ‘We get the future you deserve’ Hall rages at the boomers who’ve sold out the subsequent generations for buy to let homes and destroying the planet for greed, share dividends, and skiing holidays. His voice cracks as he spits the words, the fury at this fucked-up mess. It’s powerful, and it really does occupy every inch of your being listening to this, because it ignites every nerve in our body to connect with such raw intensity.

‘Council Rust’ brings a more tranquil tone, but it’s not a calmness that comes from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but from a sense of hopelesness, of feeling battered and bereft. Nails leaves you feeling drained, but uplifted. Yes, everything is fucking shit, but you are not alone: Benefits know, and articulate those tensing muscles and clenching fists and heart palpitations and moments where you feel as if you can’t quite breathe into incendiary sonic blasts. Benefits are without doubt the most essential band in (shit) Britain right now. And with Nails, they have, indeed, nailed it.

AA

a0662330954_10

Pound Land – Defeated

Posted: 25 November 2022 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Cruel Nature Records – 2nd December 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Having raved about Pound Land’s second album, Can’t Be Arsed back in March, I was pretty thrilled to find the follow-up landing so swiftly. What with the exponential rise of Benefits, and acts like Polevaulter emerging, it seems that now is a good time for angsty, angry music with noisy tendencies and gritty sociopolitical leanings. Of course it is: it’s a sign of the times, and besides, it’s not a good time for anything else, unless you happen to be a non-dom billionaire or a CEO at an oil company.

If Sleaford Mods set a new template for the paired-back duo setup as being in vogue before the pandemic, the combination of lockdowns and crippling economic circumstance has rendered this an operational necessity for many musicians.

Pound Land may be up to their elbows in grimy dishwater and wading through excrement in streets where the drains and sewers are backed up due to torrential downpours and a lack of council funding, but they share little common ground with Sleaford Mods, and that’s despite favouring repetitive monotonous Krautrock-inspired grooves over dynamic structures: Pound Land are far doomier, dingier, lugging their way closer to sludge metal than anything you could possibly dance to.

The Stockport duo’s third album is a monster slab of punishing, gut-dragging, bass-heavy grimness, and one has to wonder how much to read into the title. The people are weary, ground down: will they rise up, or curl up and give up?

The blurb points out that the album finds the Stockport band pushing their ‘post-industrial kitchen-sink drama preoccupations even further on Defeated, exploring the dark comedy of everyday life in the dismal land of eternal recession. Sometimes the vision expands out of shitty Britain too, ‘Drone’ recounting the wearied observations of an electronic device as it traverses the globe… You’ve got to laugh, because if you don’t you’ll kill yourself. Or somebody else.’

The laughter is pretty dark and pretty hollow, though, and derives as much from the keen observations as any particular knack for a punchline (a line about mobility scooters with Northern soul stickers on stands out as particularly pithy) and the stark musical backing isn’t especially musical, more of a pounding trudge that provides a backdrop to an endless stream of vitriol and bleak depictions of the everyday, from pavements caked with dogshit and news items about rising fuel prices and their effect in the average household. If it sounds mundane, it is, but then we need art that speaks to us about life as we experience it, and the majority know far more about scrabbling for change to buy a loaf of bread than luxury cars, watches, and clothes.

‘Violence’ is their equivalent of Public Image Ltd’s ‘Theme’, a brutal, sprawling, brawling, squalling monster that opens the album with a relentlessly heavy battering ram of a racket, like Sunn O))) with a howling harmonica and sneering Lydonesque vocal. It crushes your skull, before it fades out swiftly and unexpectedly, which somehow works. But maintaining the PiL comparison, it’s Metal Box that is perhaps the closest similarity, in that the album as a whole is diverse, fractured, unpredictable.

‘Carry On Screaming’ sounds like The Fall in a three-way collision with Yard Act and Melvins. It’s a mangled mess of drum machine beats and psychedelia and noise with a monotone vocal drawl.

Against a thumping dirge of a noise, a grating mesh of distortion and dolorous drum, the title track is a gnarly hybrid of early Swans, and elsewhere, as on ‘Sick Day’, it becomes less about songs and more about spoken word narrative delivered against a backdrop of mangled noise, and at times, it’s pretty harrowing. Lyrically, Pound Land don’t pretty things up. Sonically, they don’t either. It’s magnificently raw and un-produced, and this is no more true than on penultimate song ‘Pathogen’, a dirty slow stomp that’s pure rage and invites comparisons to Uniform. And it sounds like it was recorded on a phone from the next room.

‘Drone’ sneers and snarls like Lydon at his best, closing with a venomous refrain of ‘fucking twat’ delivered in a thick, spitting Manchester accent.

Defeated may only contain eight songs, and only a couple of them extend beyond the five-minute mark, but it’s feels immense, and experience that’s exhausting both physically and mentally. Listening, you feel the weight of the world condense and compress as the angst and anguish press down ever darker, ever denser. It’s a bleak, suffocating document of everything that’s wrong right now. This is the sound of broken Britain, and it’s a harrowing insight into just how fucked everything is. But in this channelling of nihilistic anguish, you realise you’re not alone. It doesn’t change anything, but it’s something to cling to.

AA

cover

Benefits – Thump

Posted: 20 October 2022 in Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

21st October 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

What a week to drop a new single. Especially if you’re a politically-charged British band. And particularly if you’re Benefits. Their meteoric ascendancy continues unabated: still without label, management, or PR, they’ve had the video for their new single premiered on none other than Rolling Stone Magazine’s website. They are most certainly not your typical Rolling Stone act. Yes, the magazine may historically have been an outlet for Hunter S. Thomson’s writing and been both political and cutting edge, more recently, it’s been very much more establishment. But it’s reach is huge, and if this suggests by any means that Benefits have gone establishment, you’re either nuts, or you’ve not heard of Benefits before.

For a band like this to be given such a platform isn’t simply a big deal – it’s practically the sounding horn of revolution. And as the British government collapses around our ears faster than 24/7 scrolling news can update their marquees, the timing could not be better.

Against a grinding, undulating, distorted mechanical throb, Kingsley Hall delivers another lacerating dissection of Real Life, carving his way through anxiety and dayjob drudgery, corporate and political doublespeak, endless bullshit filtered and amplified through the echo chambers of social media, ‘failure masked as victory’.

Two-thirds in, a hefty industrial beat kicks in and gives a solidity to the squalling blast of thick, thick noise, and the roaring rage yields to a crisp, clinical spoken word monologue that in many ways hits even harder than that savage raw-throated primal scream, and there’s glimmer of home as he intimates ‘we can win this’… and then, abruptly, nothing. It’s the most unexpected ending to a sing since Dinosaur Jr’s cover of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’.

It’s also Benefits’ most uncompromisingly brutal and heavyweight release yet, as well as their most fully realised.

The world is changing fast. We may be quite literally drowning in shit on the coasts of this brown and deeply unpleasant pleasant land, but Benefits are doing their bit to make it a better place, not by bringing sunshine, but telling it like it is.

AA

310802024_441175827999222_3411172905400521185_n

Benefits are on your in November:

May be an image of one or more people and text that says "enefits 18/11 GLASGOW stereo 23/11 LONDON oslo 19/11 SUNDERLAND pop recs 24/11 NOTTINGHAM bodega 20/11 SOUTHAMPTON joiners 25/11 MANCHESTER yes 21/11 EXETER cavern 26/11 LEEDS brudenell 22/11 BRISTOL strange brew tickets all shows available www.benefitstheband.com on sale friday 10am"

Watch: ‘Flag (Single Edit)’ by Benefits

Posted: 20 April 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

It may be safe for work / radio, but you certainly couldn’t accuse Benefits of selling out and you’re not going to be hearing this edit of the angry, snarling rant-fest of ‘Flag’ on R1 or Kiss FM or whatever anytime soon or ever.  Which is a shame, because everyone needs to hear these guys: Kingsley Hall and co tell it like it is.

No further preamble required: this gets out vote all the way, now get your lugs round it here:

AA

81675120_168450094539369_382539246562443264_n

Benefits / La Petite Mort / Feather Trade – The Fulford Arms, York, 25th February 2022

Posted: 26 February 2022 in Live
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

Christopher Nosnibor

Almost invariably, when there’s a buzz building around a DIY act, they’ve had some kind of assistance or boost, either via a PR campaign or radio play, and / or some fortunate support slots. Not so Benefits, whose profile has grown with the speed of contagion of the pandemic: they’ve thrived during lockdown without management, any ‘proper’ releases, and next to no press (although that’s changing fast); but instead of them seeking out the coverage they’re the ones being sought out.

On paper, their appeal is limited: shouty sociopolitical spoken word paired with blistering squalls of electronic noise is kinda niche, right? Like Sleaford Mods only more noisy and a bit shoutier, right? Sociopolitical ranting aside, not so much. Mods have very much exploited the affront some people feel about their not being a ‘real’ band, and have turned the lack of performance into a schtick. Benefits are very much a band, and despite the swinging, rhythmic hip-hop style delivery of some of the lyrics, Benefits share more with harsh post-punk noisers Uniform than another other contemporary act that comes to mind.

Steve Albini perhaps sums up the two key, and seemingly opposing elements of what Benefits do in referring to the period of musical foment of the early 80s, with ‘the Crass/Pop Group ranting lefty/anarchist punks, and Whitehouse/TG/Cabaret Voltaire pure noise’. He’s not wrong when he writes that it’s ‘Been a while since something evoked that era as effectively as this Benefits track.’

But Benefits don’t only evoke that era: they’re a band that are precisely of the moment. During lockdown, people were on edge – and they still are as they emerge, blinking, into a world that has changed, and not for the better. More divided, more violent, it’s a difficult place to navigate. People are scared, and they’re also disaffected. Benefits channel and articulate all of this, and the buzz around tonight’s show was positively electric.

Feather Trade could easily be mistaken for being a ‘haircut’ band on face value, but their tousle-topped singer’s vocals invite comparisons to The Cooper Temple Clause’s Ben Gautrey, and the comparison to TCTC doesn’t end there as the trio blast through some jagged alternative rock defined by solid, meaty bass and gritty guitars. With a post punk vibe, great voice, the lineup may have been hastily-assembled, but they boast a truly great rhythm section. Switching between acoustic and electronic drums varies sound, and the line ‘fuck your trust fund’ from closer ‘Dead Boy’ is a sentiment we can get behind. Keeping the set to a punchy five songs, they made for a compelling opener, and I doubt I’m the only new fan they’ve won on this outing. I liked these guys a lot.

DSC_1923

Feather Trade

Some guys I never really liked are La Petite Mort: in fact, my last review of them was pegged to a single line in parenthesis. But this newly-resurrected iteration shows that they’ve evolved massively in the intervening years, transitioning from a novice sixth form indie band to something altogether more challenging, and altogether more powerful. If anything, there are shades of The Young Gods both sonically and visually. Now a duo with laptop and live drums, they’re dense, dark, intense. At some point, just as he has for Avalanche Party on occasion, Jared Thorpe whips out his sax and starts tooting away. No, it’s no euphemism. La Petite Mort embrace a slew of genre styles, and nail them to some tight, technical jazz drumming and lots and lots of reverb.

DSC_1932

La Petite Mort

This all leaves us ultra-hyped for the headliners, and they sure as hell don’t disappoint with their spoken word grindcore hybrid. With some brutal electronics from Robbie Major, they build from sparse, acappella hip hop to a blistering wall of noise. They build and build and rage so, so hard it’s savage. There are some smoochy hip-hop vibes, but they’re a stark contrast to the raving lyrics. ‘You get what you deserve’, Kingsley Hall warns, menacingly. Against the backdrop of Russia invading Ukraine as we look on, we hope it’s true. They venture into post punk / Sleaford Mods-ish territory just the once over the course of an hour-plus long set. Hall reads the lyrics to ‘Meat Teeth’ from his phone in a state of anguish. The song itself is stark, harsh, and it hurts. And yet this pain is what connects us with the band. Hall’s openness and honesty when he speaks between songs is like a body blow. This isn’t a performance, this is real. “What a fucking country, what a fucking state…. Sausage roll man… Tory cunt.” He admits to struggling with the whole being on stage thing, but it’s clear from the way he attacks every line, this is something he feels he simply has to do.

DSC_1956DSC_1977

Benefits

In a recent interview with Loud and Quiet, Hall explained, “I’ve got this pent-up anger and desire to speak and to shout and discuss. But how do I translate that?” On stage, that anger is anything but pent-up: it’s channelled into an eye-popping storm of words dragged from the very soul.

DSC_1939

Benefits

‘Flag’ steps up a level just when there seemed like no more levels to step up, with punishing percussion and snarling noise. It’s harsh, but so, so invigorating and cathartic. The encore / not encore is a perfect example of the way Benefits don’t conform, don’t play the game. And while doing things on their own terms in every way, they stand apart.

There’s no pithy one-liner to wrap this up: I leave, borderline delirious, simultaneously elated and stunned by what I’ve just witnessed – a show that was, frankly, nothing short of incredible.