Attack + Defend are three siblings who cheer everyone the fuck up. I’m a bit crap at spotting fancy dress intentions so you’ll have to excuse my french, but Mark was dressed… Well, painted, appropriately, as a kind of Art Garfunkel character who had ran into a dulux factory. Their keyboards failed them a few times, but there’s enough energy in this band it barely mattered. In fact Mark could probably generate music through adrenalin if he tried. I can’t pin a style or convenient adjective on Attack + Defend. The songs defy description, creeping slowly into manic electronic craziness. They’re the ultimate jam band, moulding songs from abstract ideas and running with them. The end result is a tickled house, well up for the storm to follow.
Legend has it the last time the Threatmantics incited a pit at the art college a fight had broken out about an hour before they went on stage. A chap was dragged away after starting a barney with the bar manager, leaving the crowd behind with so much restless energy that random outbreaks of dancing infected the remaining evening. There were no fight at tonight’s album launch, but maybe the Old Rosie was enough fuel a metaller mosh pit in the front. Not bad for a Folk-Grunge outfit. Heddwyn, Ceri and Huw smiled like chesire cats at the atmosphere, which was well deserved for a tight, loud and angry set. I’m told the band are getting louder by the day, with newer songs weighing in on the higher decibel side. These moments are tempered with Heddwyn’s Volia and their folkier side, conjuring an efficient loud-quiet set up. And I haven’t been so bruised since my regular Friday night mosh at the Bristol Bierkeller when I were a lad. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what music is all about.
Threatmantics’ Upbeat Love is out from Monday on Double Six, and we’ll be reviewing it here shortly.
