We Are The Physics

Another bleugh Thursday night at a jeans-sponsored new band night in Camden, I’ve just stumbled away from one of the worst sexual experiences of my life, and I wanna go home and hide under the (hopefully not blood-stained) sheets. There better be some good bands. Or at worst some half-assed bands who at least make an effort in raising a crowd’s spirits.

And* Chow Chow* are an enjoyable mixture of both. Featuring the current must-have line up of a bunch of boys who look like they might mug you at a particularly wacky night down GateCrasher (before it burned down, of course), it’s screwball grimy synth, heavy use of vocoders and shouty vocals all the way. It’s entirely engaging and completely fun, if ultimately utterly insubstantial. Towards the end of their show however, the flippancy almost gives way to something regarding a pair of proper songs. With soaring guitar lines and building dynamics and everything. Despite the fact it’s a pretty impressive turn, it’s also worrying turn of events; the messy bits were far more exhilarating.

We Are The Physics however, are utterly, utterly perfect. A brilliant, crystalline creation of Art, Punk, Indie and Rock (D.E.V.O for short), it’s neo-situationist art-school rock that’s neither overtly-excluding nor attempting to pander with base-level humour. It’s pretty much everything you need from a band right now. Bored of glow-stick hell? Don’t fancy a fight in the street soundtracked by a large-selling ‘indie band’? What something that makes your body move, your eyes light up, the corners of your mouth upturn and the gears in your brain to turning again? Try We Are The Physics.

Either that, or it was merely devised by one particularly overly-intelligent analytical geek in between scrolling through the latest hipsterblogs and wanking off over one of those particularly twisted anime-pornos you get on line. You know, the one where the girl’s actually a boy and engages the babysitter in some high speed “Yi! Yi!” Boning. Y’know the ones… But we don’t think so, there’s too much soul in this band. You can see it in the intense looks of self belief that permeates through their sharp, focused eyes.

WATP look like Weezer cross-bred with um, Devo and are, wonderfully, all called Michael. Except for Chris. The uncooperative bastard. They also jerk, twist, stutter and halt on stage with the same synchronised perfection as their music. And they’re also fucking hilarious. Not in the way that OK GO think they are – that’d be more akin to be annoying fucktards. They’re simply brilliant, and I urge you to go see them, make them your new favourite band and tell your friends. Together, you and they can rule the world.

They even made me forget about the excruciating sexual incident. Yes, _that _good.

photo by John Sackey