BIG DEAL
White Cliffs
Sister
The Shipping Forecast
7th November 2013
Throughout a short and relentlessly average career as what
you could vaguely call a music journalist, my biggest fear has been turning up
to a show, suggesting I was on the guest list and my name wouldn’t be down.
Everyone in the queue would snigger and I would practically be boo’d out the
venue. That was until tonight though. My biggest fear now is turning up to a
show and proceeding to explain to a baffled looking door man that I’m on the
guest list for what is, to my surprise, a completely free entry show. People
didn’t boo me out or anything, but they were definitely sniggering. ‘Everyone’s
on the guest list lad’. Yeah, thanks.
White Cliffs have
received praise from some corners of the city, but it’s difficult to not feel
self-conscious around songs this dated. I’m sure there was a place for this
sort of whiney post grunge at some point, but I am thankfully not old enough to
have been there for it. I don’t know, hopefully it’s ironic and I’m just
missing the point.
It’s easy to see why London’s Sisters were included on the bill tonight, with guitars scuzzier
than the black floor beneath us. They need some serious work on their sound
set-up, but with tunes this good put through such a shoegaze filter,
there is still plenty to get your ears around.
Big Deal are an
entirely new proposition tonight. On their excellent debut Lights Out, the whole boy girl, shared microphone thing was enough
to put many people off. For those actually listening though, you’d have noticed
that they are a cynical bunch, offsetting anything you’d be tempted to refer to
as twee with lyrics dark enough to make you wonder if anyone really likes each
other and generally doubt the existence of love at all. I’m exaggerating, but
on tracks like Chair, where Alice Costello sings “You just want me
for my lungs / You just want me for the songs I write about you”, they
transformed that lightweight accompaniment into a disarming fragility, allowing
the album to get under your skin before you’ve even had a chance to consider
why.
On their sophomore effort June Gloom, Costelloe
and Kacey ‘Kc’ Underwood brought in
a drummer and turned the guitars up to create a more aggressive and
all-together more confident sounding record. Golden Light, with its lazy vocals and woozy chords is an impressive
introduction, and certainly quashes any fears that the new line up might be
having teething issues. New single Swapping
Spit, despite that title, is very moving this evening, with its sepia
tinged reflection of romance softened by Costello’s
indifferent vocals. In Your Car turns
the volume up, allowing Underwood a moment of indulgence with that piercing, power
stance inducing lead guitar part. The show spikes with the blithely anthemic Dream Machines, as the band meet each
other at those downbeats in scintillating unison. Talk is their only retreat to that debut album, although it is
almost recognisable as they race through it in double time behind a 4/4 drum
beat. The song still manages to stand up, but it is certainly an indication of
a band keen to disassociate themselves from their earlier sound. It is a shame
in many ways, as that vulnerability was what elevated much of these
songs above their indie-pop frameworks and their many contemporaries. Progression
is important though, and the only way forward after an album that
self-conscious was bigger. It’s difficult to see what form Big Deal’s troubled tales
of romance will take on next. Tonight suggest that however bad it gets, that
space between sadness and acceptance will continue to look like the easiest
place in the world.
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