What’s in a name? Easy to make misplaced assumptions on the basis of a slightly dodgy moniker, especially when it leads you to suspect terribly overwrought emo nonsense. WRONG! Belfast’s And So I Watch You From Afar are thankfully anything but, drawing together crushing stop-start riffs, swooning post-rock shorn of bombast and danceably mathy shoutalongs. Think Orwellian surveillance, not ironed fringes and tortured hand-wringing. Good. Less techy than recently-sighted countrymen Adebisi Shank, this should be visceral, focused and fantastically loud stuff.
Truckers Of Husk were named on the supporting bill but have sadly dropped out – however, equally suitable and ever more impressive locals Samoans bring their tricksy, impassioned math-prog epics instead. Fresh from an impressively intrepid trek around the South West with Kutosis and with a split single with Strange News From Another Star forthcoming on Barely Regal, there’s echoes of the yearning heaviosity of Aereogramme in their best moments. In between, perma-touring Surrey upstarts Tubelord return to Cardiff after a tumultuous year peaking with two tours with Tall Ships and an EP (Tezcatlipoca) which marked a sharp left turn from slightly unconvincing teen-grunge into a more rounded, lovelorn pop noise which has a definite scruffy charm. They’ve been let go by their label since, mind, so expect tantrums and nervous breakdowns. Maybe.
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AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR / TUBELORD / SAMOANS
WEDNESDAY 24TH NOVEMBER 7.30PM
CLWB IFOR BACH, WOMANBY ST, CARDIFF
£6.50 adv / £8.50 doors
A 14 plus event…Revered music publications like The Quietus (‘Quite some distance ahead of the rest of ’09’s guitar albums so far’), NME (‘The sound of someone crashing an oil tanker through Sigur Ros’ ice floe’), Kerrang! (‘ It’s rare for a body of work to be so dreamy and elegiac yet conversely monstrously heavy’) and Vice (‘rescuing the instrumental ship from the deepest depths of irrevocable mediocrity’) all agree. ASIWYFA are a band that are only going to get bigger and more inspiring. The Letters EP released in January 2010 and there will be further releases throughout the year. Meanwhile, catch the band’s incendiary live show at a venue near you.
7:30pm | £6.50/£8.50 | buy tickets
* www.myspace.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar
* www.myspace.com/tubelord
* www.myspace.com/samoanstheband
