It was an interesting mix of industry types, including young schmucks and old punks, that took to the grand emporium that is Kentish Town Forum this evening. The up-and-coming group, Goat Girl, were the first band of the night; here they were supporting fellow Rough Trade label mates, Parquet Courts. The group are working their way onto many of London’s best bills right now, supporting the likes of The Garden and Yung previously and an upcoming tour with Girl Band scheduled. Their loose punk energy kicked around the vast stage and you get the sense that the hugeness of the room swallowed their desolate riffs up a little bit. Nevertheless, the ferocity of the chorus in ‘Country Sleaze’ suggests that given the right venue, Goat Girl could really find their groove a little easier. A certain to keep an eye on, nevertheless.

Leeds’ locals Eagulls were up next, bringing their 2016 release, Ullages, on tour with them. It’s a loving mix of post-punk and new-romanticism with anger that swims in and out of Roxy Music sounding guitar sections. Frontman, Mark Goldsworthy, wrestles with his voice frequently throughout the set, it’s a real marmite sound but one that fully benefited from the acoustics in the room. The squalls of reverb that resonated through his vocals rang around the Kentish Town Forum, successfully building some form of desperate mosh-pit during ‘Nerve Endings’. The best track of their set stood as ‘Velvet’ though, a mellower song that showed when Goldsworthy really puts melody through his voice, he can’t half sing and bring a gloomy romance to the room.

Picking from their array of albums and headlining the night were New York’s slacker post-punks Parquet Courts. Their set was a contemporary take on New York’s infamous post-punk scene – parts of Talking Heads, Television and Richard Hell bleed throughout their set with the force of a ruptured haemorrhage. As the crowd milled in from their pre-headliner cigarette, the main attraction took to the stage. The group broke into a monolithic version of ‘Ducking and Diving’, a song that bounces in the pit of your stomach – if you ever needed a release from the mundanity of reality, this is the song that would soundtrack it. As frontman Andrew Savage yells: “That key you’ve got won’t fit that lock no more”, you can’t help but feel slightly empowered. From here the group turned to their latest effort, Human Performance for ‘Dust’, an aggravated garage-rock hustle that describes, well, the role of dust in life: “It comes through the window / It comes through the floor”.

The set weaved between all of their albums, picking off hits such as ‘Borrowed Time’ and ‘Stoned and Starving’; two highlights from their 2013 debut Light Up Gold + Tally All The Things You Broke – both pulled up trouble for the security staff at the front as bodies went flailing over heads. Elsewhere the group tugged at material from Sunbathing Animal in the form of ‘Vienna II’ and ‘Black and White’, however this is where the set faltered at times. Loose bass riffs and jagged guitar lines were swallowed up in the huge open space of The Forum. The old theatre occasionally made it hard work for the group to fill it with their sound. By the end, frontman Austin Brown seemed to show a nostalgic love for The Garage, the venue they played in London previously, a venue that probably held the intimacy and made it easier for their sound to bolster.

Overall it was a set cut in half; the tracks that carried a bit more of a punk grit and tempo were a success and those that relied on looser sections and surf-rock style guitar struggled due to the acoustics. The crowd seemed to respond similarly, those songs that carried energy really ignited the crowd and those that fell flat left the crowd and atmosphere a little deflated, with people making for the exits early.
Tom Churchill