By Amélie Peters, Music Sub-Editor
Short skirts, a bleach blonde mullet and hell-rasing punk lyrics. Amyl and the sniffers are everything you want from a punk rock band, and everything Bristol has missed since they last crossed our locket ridden bridges two years ago.
Crushed against the barriers I wonder two thing things - the first I wonder if the bones in my wrists are going to survive the crushing weight of a sea of sleeveless-jacket-wearers pressing down on me and secondly, how it is possible for someone to be born with such a powerful voice.
The opener, brought energy, prowess and a very American attitude to swearing. Unheard of to most, a mosh pit formed. Completely deserved, Upchucks energetic, angry, drum heavy, politically infused convergence of sound drove the 02s audience to the only thing they know how to do - mosh.
Upchuck, somewhat an ironic foreshadowing given the audience member that brought up what looked like pasta pesto and copious amounts of larger in the mosh pit later in the night.
Flamboyant bouncing on stage, it's hard not to comment on the 70s blown-out flipped-out ends, bleached blonde hair. Impressively blonde and more impressively sturdy, the hair styling never falters. At the end of the one-hundred-and-twenty-minute set, not a hair is out of place.
Deep and rasping, Amy Taylors range is sprawling. From the deep baritone of her lyrical voice to the operatic roars that follow, she hits every note and soars far beyond.
'U Should Not Be Doing That', a bouncing trickster base throughout, urging an audience to move. A riff that slides cheekily in the background, echoing the lyrically rebellious goings on. And a little bit of brass that says we can do eloquently too.
Stylistically gig attire walks a fine line between the practical and the flashy, desperately loud and expressive, as an artist you want to visually speak words whilst also singing them.
Amy Taylors is aesthetically a vision, Punk and feminine. Marching across the stage in a dress so purposefully short, her underwear is on full display.
My mind goes to Jordan Mooney, Born Pamela Rooke, latex-sheathed, aesthetically insubordinate, militant in maintaining the punk ideology.
'Knifey', a track entering on the violence against women, drawing such similarities to Courtney Barnett’s song ‘Nameless Faceless.’, one wonders if the song is in fact a homage to the fellow Australian.
Whilst Amy Taylor is superb, lyrically brilliant, angry and everything feminism wants. Her gig attendees are anything but. Clinging on to the aesthetic, quite a few of the middle-aged male attendees seem to have missed the lyrical message. The front row consisting of middle-aged men, filming up the skirt of the singer.
'Tiny Bikini' a standout, follows the outrage Taylor's admittedly tiny outfits seem to stir up. Throughout the song there is a taunting sarcastic tone, Taylor is almost bating the misogynistic audiences to say something.
Touring their latest album Cartoon Darkness, a bleak, nihilistic look at the politics of today. Developing both lyrically and as a vocalist Taylor takes bounds, delivering her most powerful performance to date.
Featured image: Metropolis MusicWhat do you think of Cartoon Darkness?
