MANATEES + CHARLOTTEFIELD + DOWN I GO + ZETTASAUR
The Fly, WC1
28th September 2007 8:30pm

Another night, another DiS event that hurt my poor little eardrums. The draw tonight was for Charlottefield, whose debut album ‘How Long Are You Staying’ entered my consciousness earlier this year with 2004’s illustrious ‘How Long Are You Staying’. There’s a new LP of theirs due out in the new year, which explained the abundance of unknown material performed, most of which sadly didn’t come across as involved as on record, where they throw guitar licks and lyrics and all these elements that end up all over the place with quite the bloody velocity. Instead they seemed a bit, well, mardy. Perhaps I was wanting more, or merely for them to Play The Hits (that’ll be ‘A > B’ and ‘Clipper’, then). Or they didn’t like me repeatedly snapping them, although for sure I was the most inconspicuous camera type there. Disappointing, but a second showing may balderdash this last paragraph. Here’s hoping.

Slightly more satisfying were opening band Zettasaur, who drew from the same DC math hardcore soup as Charlottefield and a megaload of other bands these days and then went to the Part Chimp school of being melodic and fucking loud, although not to ‘oh-fuck-why-can’t-i-hear-anymore-who-cares-THIS-RULES’ effect that PC brought on back in August. That feeling was to come later. If anything, the drummer from Zettasaur is bloody fantastic, beating at his kit like he was Animal in an avant-garde Electric Mayhem. Vocals were completely incomprehensible but the tunes were mostly venereal hunks of tightly convulsive goodness. Hit that MySpace like you’re a school bully and they’re the nerdy kids who will rise up against you, Revenge Of The Nerds style. Wait, what?

You are sensing that I’m working the lineup in the order of how much they brought the funk. You’d be right. Any mentions of journeys of time and space and I’ll deck you. Manatees (above) were the headline band and were effectively twenty five or so minutes of doomtasticness that shook your body until you realised that your entire body is shaking and it’s all their fault. The pain in my left ear is their fault as well. Gaaaagh. This display of bone-rattling almost drone racket more than made up for the climax, which descended into a stomping motion that initally sounded grand but the stationary nature of it made it wear evar so slightly. I have no idea what the song was called My friend was less impressed although she suggested about how perhaps the sound of Manatees is a manly sound. Perhaps: shouting, bass RIFFS and general pounding were all present in satisfying measures, and that’s all just lovely in my eyes…

Favourite band though were Down I Go (top), who couple being tumultuous with the random article function on Wikipedia. They are disastercore, apparently, although they’ve released records called ‘This Is Dinocore’ and ‘This Is Robotcore’, the latter being the cutest 3″ CD I’ve ever seen although I needed to import it into my iTunes using someone else’s computer for fear of it getting lost in my MacBook. :-[. They write songs about disasters and bad things, essentially, and although from the out-set they look like they’re taking subjects like the Challenger space shuttle disaster with a pinch of dry humour (song in question’s opening salvo consists of ‘Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh!’ and is called ‘Billion Dollar Burning Coffin’ in case you were wondering) I’ve heard that this may not the case; that they don’t want to be disrespectful. Cracking in-between banter, though, and cracking songs that don’t last very long, save for the monumental closer which peaked with the crowd singing along to a song about Turkmenbashi. I WANT TO SEE THEM AGAIN.

Got to appreciate a night where you find other bands above your expectations that compensate for any slight disappointments. Three of the four bands are playing in the smoke in the coming months: both Zettasaur and Charlottefield hit the Silver Rocket all dayer in November which also features Lords and Meet Me In St. Louis, and Down I Go are putting on their own show with some Irish bands at the Cross Kings (in Kings Cross no less) in November also. Catch them with your hands!

Apparently I’m off to some club later on. Whee.

roman david