Redjetson

I didn't plan on seeing Amusement Parks On Fire. It just wasn't on my list of things to do on this chilly Tuesday evening. Sometimes that's the way it happens though. You're sat at the bar, cradling a pint of water, pencilling another review, and a wash of sound paints a grainy, blurred background to the scene. The humming and fuzzing gets a little louder. It ebbs, and swells again. Then some quiet instinct in you persuades you to surrender your wobbly bar stool and wander in.

So much emphasis is placed on what music should make you feel like. It's supposed to bludgeon your brain in and make your eyes melt and bleed and suckerpunch you rudely in the gut and make you shit yourself. Why? Why is it meant to hurt? Are we really all such masochists?

Amusement Parks On Fire don't hurt. At all. They aren't intense: all-encompassing is a better word. They're all the things we're told this sort of music isn't meant to be - soft, pretty, vague, passive... happy. APF's organic post-rock clouds over before your eyes and glows invitingly at you. Mike Feerick's vocals are largely buried contently beneath the fuzzy, tidal guitars and gorgeous, gloopy pool of noise that laps around your ears. They're as liquid as music gets, easy to feel but hard to hold onto. Watching them in the safe, familiar little enclave of the Water Rats feels like returning to the womb. You imagine it'd be something like this. Not dramatic but warm, and right, and more familiar than anything has ever felt.

In startling contrast, Redjetson sound like Apocalypse Now. Day of the Triffids. War of the Worlds. Whatever. They sound like a fucking behemoth.

Redjetson's thunderous post-rock assault always had a fragile edge, their murkiness softened by touches of ethereal light and reflection. Tonight they change tack altogether. There's not one moment of respite from start to finish. Just watching them is an unsettling experience, as the six-piece seem to meld into one crashing, jerking organism, heaving disquietingly in every direction and pushing the intensity up and up to panic level. Backed by a martial rhythm section, Clive Kentish's vocals finally, truly, come of age, reverberating off the walls in an unwavering, pitiless drone.

Shrouded in ugly green and orange light, Redjetson are not fragile anymore. They're frightening. As the bass begins to make the skin crawl upon your cheeks, it's like having your face pressed into the earth. Sometimes music _is_ meant to hurt you - and it feels great.

Photo: Sonia Melot, taken for www.redjetson.co.uk