I walked into Sticky Mike's Frog Bar and was greeted by a fairly decent rendition of Beatles track 'Come Together' as performed by no thrills indie rock band The Sleepwalks. Like a young Oasis their influences are worn proudly on their sleeves, they weren’t the most original act but the half set I caught was solid and consistent. I’d turned up for AudioBeach Studios fourth birthday, they were celebrating by hosting a night of music featuring four bands who had all made use of their studio. No surprise then that this was a mixed bag, a group of bands you wouldn't normally pair together. We had 90's Madchester-style indie from the aforementioned Sleepwalks, grungey ska punk from Echo & The Beats, melodic pop rock from Departure From Normal and dark orchestral rock from Birdeatsbaby. Every member of the audience were given vouchers toward discounted recording at the studio and presented with a download code to check out a song by each of the artists on the bill, so presumably there were a lot of bands in the crowd, checking out the competition and trying to bag some cheap recording time.

 

Ironically I found main support Departure From Normal to be rather pedestrian. To my ears their poppy rock owed more to Busted or McFly than the britpop they claim to be inspired by. They were certainly a very tight unit, polished and well rehearsed, but their constant hectoring of the audience felt a little forced. I can imagine them doing very well, handsome lads singing love songs with some catchy melodies, but it's not really my cup of tea. Echo & the Beats had all the originality the Departure From Normal boys lacked, perhaps it's not very punk of me to say this, but I felt they’d benefit from tightening up a bit and borrowing some of the Normal’s polish! There was certainly a lot of quality musicianship on display, fantastic rhythm section and lead singer Chuck's tapping and pull-off guitar playing style reminded me of my guitar hero Omar Rodriguez Lopez during his At The Drive-In heyday. Unfortunately I found this was often tonally competing with the saxophone, which didn't really cut through enough.  

 

Birdeatsbaby were the most experienced band on the bill and they certainly stole the show, having a firm grip on dramatic dynamics that their classical leanings have probably taught them. They started the show with their violinist performing solo, before the rest of the band took to the stage hitting us with a wall of bombast: a well oiled machine despite bass/guitar player Gary being afflicted with a split wrist. There were some technical difficulties, with a snare that decided to turn into a tom halfway through one song and a violin tone that was heavily restricted to prevent it from feeding back, but the overall impression was of a band who've really worked their sound and come up with something enticing and different. New single 'The Bullet' and the title track from their last album, 'Feast of Hammers' both came across very well which bodes well for their forthcoming album. The band has a cult following and managed the impressive feat of raising £11,000 through Kickstarter to fund promotion for their latest record 'The Bullet Within'. Here's hoping 2014 can be a breakthrough year for them.  

Adam Kidd

 

Birdeatsbaby – Ghosts