Drowned In Sound presents…AGENT BLUE / LOVE ENDS DISASTER! / THE SCREENING / POEM ROCKET
Posted by AlMachine on Wednesday, February 1, 2006


With Bunnymen riffs and catatonic wails aplenty, Poem Rocket are like a spasmodic storm in a china tea cup, making the kind of music your parents probably warned you not to experiment with when you were six years old. Its like watching remote controlled stock cars pile up in a lock-up garage as John Stacey’s growled vocal intervenes between the playful guitar and bass exchanges that rival both the Editors for intensity and Melt Banana for excitement. As a lesson in discourse, Poem Rocket are an enigmatic and enthralling conundrum, but one that will doubtlessly go far.

By the time Leicester four piece The Screening take the stage, the venue has filled up considerably, and deservedly so, as their skewered guitar based pop is a refreshing - insulating even – diversion, warming up even the coldest of hearts on this bitter Friday evening. Two songs into their set and it becomes apparent quite a few punters are here to see them, as words are sung back at the band communally throughout the set. Despite still being unsigned, the likes of ‘Take It Or Leave It’ and ‘Something Beautiful’ contain more hooks than a fisherman’s wicker basket, and their delicate interplay between 80s tinged Killerisms and late 90s Britpop should stand them in good stead for daytime radio airplay.

Love Ends Disaster! meanwhile go from strength to strength with every show. Despite the Bloc Party endorsements and rave reviews picked up by last year’s ‘Stories For The Dislocated EP’, it’s fair to say neither of these do the band justice compared to their captivating live show. Singer Matthew Oakes stares at the front row like a man possessed, pounding to and fro across the stage while his band’s incendiary mash up of angular, punk-pop, jangly ska tunes create a mangle on and off the stage. ‘Ginko Disco’ is a melange of disco punk that recalls Devo at their most eclectic while ‘Warning Robots’, complete with it’s ‘Red Dwarf’ signature tune middle eight rips through the floor like a jet powered buzzsaw. If this isn’t their year then I’m a Chinaman…

Agent Blue meanwhile are the comeback kings without permission from rock’n’roll’s style focused hierarchy. “New” album ‘A Stolen Honda Vision’ may have taken 18 months to finally see the light of day, but the urgency and vigour sprouting from Nic Andrews and the rest of the band would give anyone the impression that they are fighting for their lives, or in their case, the right to make any more records. Which they quite possibly are.

What makes their show even more special is the way they interact with the audience, Andrews straddling the bar during ‘Sex Drugs And Rocks Through Your Window’ before clawing his way across the ceiling like a possessed monkey on the dramatic ‘341’. Terse, frantic, and visually charismatic, if there is a more exciting and entertaining live band in the UK than Agent Blue at this moment in time then I’ve yet to see ‘em.

All in all, Drowned In Sound’s first night in Nottingham was a resounding success! Here’s to the next one.

Mark Moore

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