By Sophie Scannell, Music Subeditor
The crowd are all kitted out STARFACE-style. It seems everyone's either opted for Starface pimple patches coating their cheeks or shoddy freehand attempts at eyeliner-drawn stars around their eyes. The bass drum is adorned with stickers reading ‘lavaland’: a stylistic and creative emblem founded by the artist expressing artistic freedom, rave culture and queer identity, and the crowd’s anticipation to be transported there in a just over an hour is palpable.
Supporting Lava on two out of the four stops of tour is Crystal Murray, accompanied by guitarist (and borderline doppelganger of The Dare) Adrian. The two are from Paris, and Murray delights in telling us that this is the pair’s first time in Bristol, which is met with a wholesome welcoming of cheers from the crowd.
Murray displays her thanks in the form of a snappy half-hour set, flaunting an intermingling of jazz, R&B and garage. A distorted droning effect is achieved with the use of two microphones at once, which smoothly sail over accompanying drumbeat prerecords. She giddily runs off stage after her set, confessing her uncontainable excitement for Lava’s performance, and the feeling is completely mutual.
The room is buzzing in anticipation for Lava's arrival, and for good reason: their debut album had been long-awaited given their prolific single releases over the past few years, and with Bristol being one of the dates on just a teeny four-stop tour, we’re one of the golden ticket holders, getting to hear STARFACE in its first steps out into the human world.
Released earlier this year, STARFACE is an eclectic genre-melding concept album, delving into the realms of sci-fi and psychedelia in its explorations of gender fluidity and the navigation of relationships and identity as a non-binary person. It’s a gorgeously generous album, spanning seventeen tracks with star-studded features across many of them, from the likes of Courtney Love to Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers.
Apprehensive of how these hugely abstract sonic themes (and equally huge features) are going to translate live, the opening track ‘Manifestation Manifesto’ is welcomed with open arms as the band prove to be tight, the drums loud, and Lava down for a good time as they strut onto stage armoured with a bottle of beer and Carhartt trapper hat.
Though the three on stage sound great, the track was certainly not my favourite from the record, and it seemed that the choice to open with it may not have scored with everyone in the crowd. Lava gives us a telling off, demanding us to let loose and dance, as they poignantly put it: ‘I know it’s Sunday but it’s still the f*cking weekend!’.
Lava thrives from 'fusing the lyricism of British rap with dreamy sounds you'd hear coming out of bands like Tame Impala’. Songs like 'Aerial Head' and 'Push N Shuv' encapsulate this very fusion, melding strident synths with succinct and clever lyrics that fit the cosmic, other-worldly narrative of STARFACE in lines like ‘So I belled up mothership / ET phone home’.
‘LOVEBITES’ is another crowd pleaser that follows shortly after. It's ‘a song about a situationship’ Lava tells us (as if it wasn’t clear from its opening line ‘My girlfriend has a boyfriend, / He hasn’t met me yet’) and it's greeted with a ruckus in the crowd both for and against the notoriously sticky relationship period. Nevertheless, the stridently sultry delivery of lyrics like ‘It is what it is baby’ oozes a smoothness and charm that Lava exudes when performing these newer songs.
The trio on stage shred guitar riffs simultaneously in a sweetly symphonic distortion of rock sounds that results in Lava’s guitar pick snapping in half. ‘Look what’s left of my guitar pick’, they joke, holding up what’s left of a pathetic shard of yellow plastic, ‘that’s how hard I ride for you’.
Chatting to the crowd (presumably whilst another pick is being sourced behind the scenes), I take the opportunity to admire Lava’s outfit. Telling NME earlier this year that ‘Gen Z deserve a lesbian Bowie’, Lava is sporting a red and white painted face and an eccentric two piece, the collars of which make up a Union Jack on one side and the Jamaican flag on the other in homage to both their Jamaican roots and their stomping ground in West London, where underground music scenes and warehouse parties shaped Lava's sound today.
The centrepiece of the outfit is undoubtedly the life-like eyeball displayed across their torso, a reference to the album art for STARFACE. Lava tells us that it’s designed by a friend they made at Boomtown as a result of complimenting her funky trousers. She’s from Bristol and in the crowd tonight, making for a very wholesome moment as they look for her in the crowd, and one that segues nicely into a more romantic track, ‘Celestial Destiny’.
Promising to serenade us, Lava encourages the crowd to ‘consensually put your arm around the people you’re with… if they’re into that’. Pairing nicely with 'Shell of You' that follows after, the artist admits it's their favourite on the record, being the one where they feel most like Ava (their real name, where the anagram Lava La Rue comes from). Lighters in the air, the crowd sway in unison to this seemingly more mellow track, before the gut wrenching delivery of 'Forget you, forget you, forget you' is met with a huge breakout of guitar distortion and reverb that sets the room alight approaching the show's finale.
The set ends with Magpie, a throwback to their 2021 debut EP ‘Butter-Fly’, and one that the crowd seems to still have a lot of time for, clustering in the centre of Strange Brew to hold Lava up as they leap into the crowd for a surf along the venue, flicking the V to the cameraman that follows behind. A triumphant end to a stellar set.
Featured Image: Sophie ScannellDo you have a favourite lyric from STARFACE?
