Tryptich is a festival over three days in the middle of January, which you might think is a crazy time to have a festival. Though Brighton has a long tradition of mini-festivals around this time of the year and I’ve been to quite a few over during that time. Despite it being the coldest night of the year so far, The Hope & Ruin was rammed when I turned up at the beginning of the night. It’s a bit of an eclectic mix of bands tonight but I have been looking forward to this show for a while.
Kicking things off tonight are one of the most impressive bands I saw last year, Skinny Milk. For starters they are incredibly heavy, yet neither of the duo play a six string guitar. Instead the band is made up of a drummer and bass player, who has an impressive rack of effects peddles. The amazing thing is that if you closed your eyes and just listened to the music you would barely realise that it was a two-piece or that there was no guitarist. They somehow manage to get an impressive wall of sound out of just the two of them. They had saved a new track, just for today, and it sat well with the rest of their set. This is certainly a band you have to see live to believe.
Taking the middle slot was Guru, who have been growing in reputation since they blasted onto the scene a few years ago. They were loud, very loud in that small packed room and full of energy. The four-piece indie-rock band took me back to my early days of hanging out, going to local pub gigs around London. With their long build-up intros that launch into high energy songs, this is a band to jump around to. Which everyone did, raising the temperature of the room to a heatwave. Never a bad thing in the middle of the winter. The band finished on a song about narcissism, which the singer said was a song about him and not hard to believe. An entertaining performance that really rocked the place.
So, onto the headliner of the show, though tonight is really more of an equal showcase of all three bands. Heirloom may not be a band you have heard of yet but I have a feeling they could be the talk of the town soon. I had wondered if people would drift off after the first two bands, that are much heavier than Heirloom but the place remained packed to the end. I’m not totally surprised though, they have a bit of a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds vibe about them in as much as they cross a lot of styles, making them quite inclusive. Heirloom call themselves a, “Gloom pop band” which I quite like as a description. There are elements of goth and rock all wrapped up in dark pop songs that are very easy to get into. They sounded even more polished onstage than when I saw them about six months ago and announced that they will be supporting Demob Happy on their UK tour, a killer combination if you ask me.
I don’t think I could have asked for a better gig to get me started in 2019 and it’s got me all excited about seeing more live music for the rest of the year. What more could you ask from a mini festival in the cold dark January month.
Jonski Mason
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