This Et Al @ The Vine
By Karl Greenwood
Mr Neil, lead singer of The Playmates ostentatiously parades on and off the stage, needlessly brash and purposely demented, he bids to blow the sweaty-browed gathering to smithereens with his typecast ruffled rock star demeanour. Halfway through the set most of the audience appear unresponsive and unconvinced to Mr Neil's nonsensical shout of 'we're fucking ace'. It's a statement that doesn't sit well, especially when The Playmates seem incapable of backing it up.
Whilst menacingly staring with their sunrise eyes fixed on the crowd and simultaneously chanting into their microphones, The Playmates tear through each song as though their life depended on it. Their 'its all or nothing' approach is welcoming and it is good to see them acting like punk mad infantries where guitars become their weapons of choice and the stage becomes a battleground for the night. Musically, they very rarely blemish the threshold of mediocrity with smidgens of their set being a tad encouraging. The imitation of past 70's punk bands appears to numb their creativity and ace they are not.
The idiosyncrasies of Post-Rock at times can be speculative and distorted to say the least, as there appears to be no conclusive classification of what post-rock is. Having said that, Corleone will undoubtedly be labelled as being a post-rock band due to their mirrored style of so many so called post-rock bands before them. Corleone attempt to join alliance with greats such Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and Sigur Ros with their onslaught of breezing guitars and circular melodies that oscillate around and around and around and around and around. And that's pretty much it. They play with vigour and passion but fail to establish an impetus to get the wheels in motion. The over use of their serene pieces of music becomes monotonous throughout, unlike many other accomplished sound sculptors who artfully find a way to make their music ingenious and more malleable by finding variation to keep the listener enticed. They are prohibited by the need to rise to an enthralling crescendo every time. By being too one-dimensional and with each song sounding like an Explosion in the Sky B-side, it becomes slightly sterile.
Thirty aback from the stage, necks as if controlled by hydraulics suddenly seemed to rise a few more inches, eyes pealed open wide, the sweaty people get sweatier, the tired people suddenly awake as boys and girls cram together to watch the next band, The Sunshine Underground. For tonight these guys sparkled in the spotlight with a frenzied and zesty performance. Their flamboyant and well executed set gripped the crowd, people swayed to the disco beats and danced to the stampede of the bass drum in there little hard fought space. A little space- but it was their space and that's all that mattered to them. The guitarist flung himself gallantly into every lick with the bass player's fluid bass lines trickling neatly underneath.
The Sunshine Underground are not phased to try to be popular and not afraid to write songs with hooks and melodies that haggle with the audiences emotions. Unlike so many pretentious wannabe- subterranean bands that pine to be unique by doing potty things such as playing coconuts with a drum machine and a Theremin, The Sunshine Underground write uncomplicated songs to entertain the popular and what is wrong with that.
Looking like communist figurines dressed in red and black shirt and ties akin to those as worn by Kraftwerk on their Man Machine album This Et Al take to the stage. They appear to be solemn, as if more is at stake, a more professional set up with a darker and more static appearance to that of The Sunshine Underground. The audience appear to be less susceptible to their jarring and gawky start. The atmosphere has been pretty much been wiped blank and This Et Al have to now try and regurgitate some of the good feeling before the audience drown in their own sweat and get fidgety. The contours within their music began to rise with a framework of talented musicians eventually showing how inventive they could actually be. Bouncing along the crowd reciprocated the appreciation to the blood bath of noisy guitars and effortlessly enriching vocals. Highly regarded as one of the best bands in Leeds, This Et Al unfortunately just fell short to produce the hair-splitting moments desired to justify this tag.
