One Unique Signal

I was, admittedly, somewhat prejudiced against One Unique Signal due to their tautological name. If the Signal is Unique, there can by definition only be One. The numerical prefix is surplus to all requirements except that of threatened lawsuits by a hypothetical band called Unique Signal. However, I’d heard good rumours and was therefore quite happy to amble along to the Portland Arms on the off chance that the positive buzz was justified.

And it is: One Unique Signal play with the ferocious detachment of men so far gone in possession that everything else has become irrelevant. Their angular, jagged rock gives the impression that each instrument is attacking every other; the drums played with the clockwork regularity of the inevitable while the guitars siren and howl and the drummer sings with an casual deadpan intent. The music never does what you expect, all sudden rises and falls littered with mood and tempo changes. It’s intense and exciting stuff, the kind of music which sucks you in more and more over the duration of the set as the absorption of the band in their music begins to translate itself into the mind of the audience, and as you realise exactly how unusual their sound is. If you like strange noise-rock with odd undercurrents to it, OUS may well float your metaphorical boat. If you have a non-metaphorical boat, though, I wouldn’t attempt to launch it on the soundwaves of their live set. That would be madness and could only lead to failure and heartbreak.