By Louis O’Sullivan, Second Year, English and Philosophy
Plunging himself into The New Sound almost immediately after the indefinitely long separation of London experimental rock group Black Midi, Geordie Greep set a standard for his former bandmates. As such, there seems a lot of pressure for co-frontman Cameron Picton to make his mark in a post-Midi world, and perhaps My New Band Believe was the best way to go about it. In anything but a solo project, Picton’s latest venture and their self-titled album involved a collaboration of 52 credited contributors, though Picton remains the core of the sound.
The album itself has an art-rock, almost folky sound at times, but at Rough Trade, much of Picton’s experimental jam rock roots came through much more prominently. With a long trilling intro reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the band moved into ‘Target Practice’, the opener of the album that showcases Picton’s ability to write resentful, and at times, ominous lyrics over a cheery instrumentation. In the album, the chorus ‘Don’t cry, you deserve this/ Don’t cry, you deserve this’ is sung with a chorus of voices, but even in the absence of a 20-piece band, the song didn’t sound one bit less impactful.
Following the structure of the album, ‘In The Blink of an Eye’ follows, the lyrics continuing the theme of a menacing, vengeful narrator who watches over their victim. After whispering the chorus of ‘Don’t cry/ Don’t scream/ It’s just/ One night’ in the beginning, Picton began to roar them towards the end, before plunging into an improvisational jam, looking to his bandmates for support. The ending of this track morphed into the next; with a grating and chaotic intro, ‘Numerology’ began, and I couldn’t help but smile at Picton crying out ‘Ass’ in repetition. It seems in the studio versions of each song, Picton is holding back, but in performance he unleashes his full range of vocals, and allows a raspy distortion to take over his otherwise mellow voice. It was also interesting to note the range of tools the bassist, Caius Williams used to extract sounds from his guitar, from a bow to what looked to be a screwdriver.
Picton didn’t seem particularly interested in crowd work, although at one point he did groan as though he had something to say, but apparently he must have forgotten it, and so the band moved onto ‘Heart of Darkness’. The track itself is 8 minutes long, but it was here that the band seemed to commit to improvisation, and the songs that followed, Actress and Love Story all seemed to homogenise into one 20-minute-long piece, that ebbed and flowed as the drummer found a variety of trinkets to use on his kit.
Hanno Sie
Moving onto the first single from My New Band Believe, ‘Lecture 25’, the DNA of Black Midi that Picton made up began to show more, with high energy improvisation and musical stabs that went almost out of place before moving back into the rhythm with ease populating the jam. Once again, almost comically dark lyrics like ‘I have a friend who should be killed/ I’d do it myself, but there’s a law’ contrasted against the high energy and upbeat sound. In the fairly modest Rough trade event space, the level of noise just four band members could create was incredible, something foretold by opener and Believe collaborator Kiran Leonard when he said “they will knock you on your ass, they’re brilliant”.
The disappointment I felt when they came to the end of their set was punctuated by a few crowd members shouting, ‘I believe!’ mostly at Picton as he left, though he seemed to be too exhausted to acknowledge them. Though I didn’t feel the urge to join them, I truly think that I just might believe, and if you don’t yet, give the album a listen.
Featured image: Epigram / Louis O’SullivanHave you listened to the debut album yet?
