LIVE REVIEW: Shred Yr Face – THE BRONX / FUCKED UP / ROLO TOMASSI

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff. Mon 2 Mar

words NOEL GARDNER

People who have cause to pay attention to these things often lament the fact that frequently, national tours which sell out in a trice elsewhere in the UK take far longer to reach that status in Cardiff. Not so the excitably-named Shred Yr Face tour, tickets for which were snapped up in these parts long before anywhere else. As such, tonight was a guaranteed sardine-tin atmosphere, although people are still trickling in when youthful Sheffield quintet Rolo Tomassi begin their incomprehensible, shifting, purposefully awkward and abrasive set. Softly spoken between songs, they (especially frontwoman Eva Spence) dredge vocals from the gutter and fling them in the sharkpool with free jazz fretboard taps, gloopy analogue keyboards and fierce hardcore abrasion.

Pink Eyes, Fucked Up’s amply proportioned singer, starts off by forgetting how many times his band have played in this venue – he says this is their second visit, it’s actually their third – and then embarks on another excellent set that more or less, although not entirely, lets you get over the fact that their recent setlists seem to be pretty much the same every time. It would have taken quite the soothsayer to predict their epic, skyscraping, nasty-edged-yet-tuneful hardcore punk becoming this popular, but they certainly have the wit and guile to handle it – consummate Media People to a member – as well as the songwriting chops to back up people’s sweaty, moshpit-bound adoration.

The crowd maintain the same damp ardour for The Bronx, LA-based headliners now touting their fourth album. This writer has enjoyed their stylings before – one part Black Flag to two parts The Cult, if we must break it down – and their way with a quasi-anthem is fairly undeniable, but, unlike the two outfits preceding them, they come off like a hazy recreation of other people’s rad music, as opposed to a wilful attempt to carve their own mark. Matt Caughthran’s between-song exhortations are as corny and rambling as his hairline is receding (very) and their set is at least 15 minutes longer than necessary.