!!! / BANDICOOT | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Wed 20 Nov
Just six weeks after a headline show in this very venue, Swansea’s Bandicoot [below] have made the journey back along the M4 to once again preach to the as-yet unconverted. Theirs is a slippery sound, often more arch than angry, that fuses funk rhythms, big choruses and Morrissey/Marr vocal/guitar interplay into something akin to a bilingual Franz Ferdinand. Charismatic frontman Rhys Underdown – whose jet-black curtains make him look like mid-90s David Beckham if David Beckham had been a fan of 4AD’s roster – divides his time between guitar, keys and de rigueur saxophone. Pongo, Worried Blues and Everything I Need are more than enough to earn them a Ones To Watch badge.
The very first issue of Legs McNeil’s famed fanzine Punk, published in January 1976, contained an unequivocal condemnation of the other style of music that held New York in its grip at the time: “The epitome of all that’s wrong with Western civilisation is disco.” Watching !!! [above], you’d never know that the lines between the two genres were once so firmly (if arbitrarily) drawn.
The city’s premier punk-funk party-starters have been making people move since forming in Sacramento almost a quarter of a century ago, and new LP Wallop – their eighth, once again released on Warp Records – finds them pushing further into clubhead territory than ever before, striving to capture (as they told Clash magazine) “the k-hole momentum of 4am dancefloors” at the same time as railing against gentrification, “a weird dystopian hipster clown show”.
From the instant Wallop’s opening track $50 Million kicks us off, there’s simply no let-up. Dancing Is The Best Revenge – the mantra they live by – isn’t alone in boasting a bassline to die for, while Must Be The Moon’s tale of early-hours post-club lust, from 2007’s Myth Takes, is thrown in for those of us who aren’t late to their party. Nattily dressed in a patterned suit and T-shirt, vocalist Nic Offer has the boundless energy and enthusiasm of an excitable puppy, shuffling his shoulders, throwing devil horns and leaping off stage to mingle with the audience. Partner in crime Meah Pace may be small of stature but she brings a big presence and a voice to match, her shimmering dress obviating any need for a mirrorball.
Wallop’s swansong There Is The Door makes the best use of the dual vocals, Offer and Pace engaging in dramatic dialogue as if acting out a Motown classic. But by that point the show has already been stolen by Freedom ‘15, a euphoric riposte to a former lover which is essentially LCD Soundsystem let loose on the Bee Gees. !!! may still be yet to release a truly essential album, but live they remain utterly unmissable.
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos SIMON AYRE