Gang of Youths first caught my attention at last year’s Great Escape Festival. As charismatic frontman David Le'aupepe paroled the stage, the rest of the band played epic compositions about love, loss and depression under the backdrop of raw emotion. I went home to investigate them to find they were already a huge success down in their native Australia but had yet to break the European market.

Fast forward a year and the five-piece are now residents of London and looking to make it big in the Northern Hemisphere. Tuesday night at the 150 capacity Green Door Store was the beginning of this as they portrayed their elongated, sprawling compositions to an eager and inebriated crowd.

Each of their songs build and slowly enlarge until they eventually fragment out at the ends into epic crescendos. With the euphoric underbelly of Arcade Fire, the deep, raw voice of Le’aupepe and the potent lyricism of The National, Gang of Youths are tailor made for bigger venues than this and the audience appeared thoroughly grateful as they witnessed dense, richly textured realms of sound, with layers of soaring guitars, strings, glistening synths and lingering piano riffs.

The set was made up evenly between brand new songs and tracks from their debut album The Positions – a concept album about the effects cancer had on both a former girlfriend of Le'aupepe and their relationship. This was made even more potent when the entire room went silent as he discussed one track by explaining that after losing contact with the woman in question, he had recently found out she had died, with this being his way of saying bye. The subject matter is hardly light, but it gave greater meaning and emotional attachment to the show.

Yet still, there were lighter moments in the form of the skipping beats and urgent guitars of ‘Poison Drum’, the catchy ‘Magnolia’ and the thoughtful, American-esque closer ‘Vital Signs’. Rarely does a band arrive with such a concrete vision for their art, but Gang of Youths have a powerful story to tell and you feel the story is only getting started.
Paul Hill

Website: gangofyouths.com
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