Last November, Joanna Gruesome won the Welsh Music prize for their debut album, Weird Sister, beating celebrated compatriots the Manic Street Preachers and Gruff Rhys. Yet at the start of this three-day residency, the band perform in a small, dark, mirror-lined room with a stage too small to fit all five members and an air-conditioning unit that perilously drips water over guitar leads coiled on the floor.
Not that the Cardiff-based band are fazed. As darlings of the DIY scene, they’ve built their nascent career in venues like this and thrive on informality. So they’re not too worried when drummer Dave Sandford goes awol just before the show starts. Nor that songwriter, singer and guitarist Owen Williams has to fiddle with his phone between each song to check the set list.
The hypnotic droplets, meanwhile, are no competition for the captivating Alanna McArdle. With her gaze fixed in the distance and her Dr Marten boots stamping along to the speeding, hardcore rhythms, she effortlessly balances the dissonant chords and pop melodies that fuel Joanna Gruesome’s music. She is combative then coaxing on Secret Surprise, her eyes screwed up in fury, then wide with wonder. When her lilting vocals turn into a hair-raising screech on Anti-Parent Cowboy Killers, its sounds like indie siren Miki Berenyi from Lush fronting riot grrrl band Huggy Bear.
A clutch of new songs, including Last Year and Honestly Do Yr Worst maintains this sweet and sour dynamic. But I Don’t Wanna Relax refines the Joanna Gruesome sound – there’s still a firestorm of drums and a wall of Wedding Present-inspired guitars, but McArdle’s voice never rises above a winsome coo. And when the bass breaks a string, Owen and McArdle silence a crowd eager to mosh with the delicate indie pop of Hey I Wanna Be Your Best Friend, revealing not just their capacity to adjust to circumstances but to genuinely stun.
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