Having recently played to a sold-out Koko in London to promote the reissue of their debut album, ‘The Fall of Math’, and with last year’s album number five, ‘Wild Light’ still fresh, these are exciting times for 65daysofstatic, and I’d expected a decent turnout, even on a Sunday night.
It was pretty busy by the time support act Thought Forms took the stage, and early arrival was rewarded with a blistering set of heavy psychedelic drone with a big dash of shoegaze. Rather than retreating behind the wall of noise, the trio’s set-up was up front and in your face, with the drummer front and centre stage, and the to guitarists – no bass – to the sides and back a way. The vocals – interchanging between the two guitarists, male and female, are contrasting, but down in the mix against the guitars that ricochet off one another at unexpected angles to powerful effect. There are some substantial crescendos during the course of the set, which ends on an extended climax of din and on a different night they’d be worthy headliners.
It’s interesting to note just how many of those present are recent converts to 65dos; when Joe Shrewsbury asks how many in the crowd had been at Fibbers the last time they played in York some 4 years ago, a mere handful cheer. Still, this is encouraging: that a band a decade into their career are picking up new fans instead of playing to the same plateaued fan-base can only be a good thing, and tonight’s set-list – culled almost equally from debut ‘The Fall of Math’ and last year’s ‘Wild Light’ - demonstrates why they’ve built a reputation as an impressive live act.
At times the slamming together of seemingly incongruous elements of dance and (post) rock yields results every bit as idiosyncratic as song titles like ‘Heat Death Infinity Splitter’ and ‘Install a Beak in the Heart that Clucks Time in Arabic’. By rights, a band that fuses tetchy techno, shuddering dance beats, chiming post rock and blistering guitar oughtn’t exist, let alone work. And yet switching between synths and guitars, and marrying various permutations of the two – the drummer even vacates the stool to stand stage front and fire out stuttering electro beats at one point, and as many as three guitars (plus bass) in the mix throughout the set – they do it brilliantly, and the results are endlessly exhilarating.
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‘Radio Protector’, lifted from 2005’s sophomore release ‘One Time For All Time’ arrives to a hearty reception as the set’s penultimate track, and they close with a surging rendition of ‘Safe Passage’, the final track on ‘Wild Light’.
With time to spare, they return to the stage for an unexpected – and going by the setlist, unplanned – encore, for which they dig deep, ‘I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood’ and ‘AOD’, the b-side of 2004’s ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ single, which doesn’t get aired terrible often. It made for a suitably dramatic ending to a set that had charged down myriad sonic avenues, often simultaneously, and I expect a lot more of the audience will be back next time they’re in town.
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