In Cardiff supporting Heavy Lungs, Caernarfon duo Alffa have the energy of caged beasts released into the wild – and so they might, after a period confined to the studio. Eager to savage our ears with some new songs, they pack the setlist with tried-and-tested favourites too – not least Black Angel and Full Moon Vulture, whose rolling riffs can’t help but bring Royal Blood to mind. They might only be a two-piece, but there’s enough meat on the bones to satisfy a gluttonous carnivore’s appetite.
Last time Bristol rabble-rousers Heavy Lungs set sail across the Severn, almost exactly a year ago, they played pretty much the perfect punk support slot in this very room – a high-octane half-hour preparing the ground for Ditz (and arguably even stealing the headliners’ thunder). “Full throttle” was a descriptor I used then, an image echoed in the title of their late-2023 debut album, All Gas No Brakes – so how will they approach having both more time and more material at their disposal?
The answer is immediately apparent: in exactly the same way, with foot firmly to the floor, racing through a set of ragged, riotous songs that sound best in a space like this.
It takes George Garratt – an Animal-esque drummer with love hearts dyed on his hair – all of two songs to peel off and discard his Barbenheimer T-shirt. Frontman Danny Nedelko holds off going topless a little longer, preoccupied with his own unique exercise routine: pacing back and forth, hopping and prancing like a punk praying mantis, doing push-ups on Garratt’s bass drum, venturing offstage and into the crowd to meet and greet. No wonder he needs a little lie down every now and again – on the floor, on the bar.
For James Minchall, playing bass is also a full-body workout – which leaves guitarist Oliver Southgate as the sole cool, calm head, watching on while Nedelko disappears into the maelstrom created by an initially stand-offish audience and Garratt leaves his kit to perform a brief duet version of Kelis’ Milkshake with a punter.
At the conclusion – by which point there’s a guy in a wheelchair banging down shots in the moshpit – Nedelko is relieved to hear that it’s no one’s birthday, before the band inevitably lunge into (A Bit Of A) Birthday (bellowed chorus: “I don’t wanna be your birthday boy”) and all hell breaks loose.
The gig may not be a sell-out, even for Clwb Ifor Bach’s smaller downstairs room – but the fact that, as the feedback dwindles, practically everyone in attendance forms an incongruously orderly queue for the merch desk tells you all you really need to know.
Heavy Lungs / Alffa, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Fri 19 Apr
words and photos BEN WOOLHEAD
