The Rain Band

The Buffalo Bar in Highbury is buzzing smilingly. Only two bands on the menu at the The Basement Clubnight, but two very fine ones indeed...

In the left corner, hunched over fashionably moody, are new-found indie gods Oceansize, drenching the venue in their blend of etherial dreams and brutal guitars. They warm up in post-hardcore, Aereogramme/Biffy Clyro style (Start...Stop...Start...Stop), then slowly add in softer sounds, threading iridiscient melodies through the top that make their rockier underbelly slide right down your consciousness.

Close your eyes for a second and it's like you're travelling through a starsoaked sky, listening to some sort of future vision of sound. My body may be in a darkened basement just off Highbury&Islington tube, but I swear this feels like flying. Roughened up bass and drums that follow a complicated voodoo trance add just enough earthiness to remind you that this is all human. Silvery, liquid guitarstrings tell you otherwise. Vocals that melt into you like a perfume you never want to wash off promise you won't forget them too soon, as Oceansizeburn through the airwaves in a final sonic assault...this band positively damages you - your perceptions of what bands should sound like that is. They raise the standard considerably...not an easy band to follow by any means.

But to the right corner looms the disarmingly good Rain Band, all darkclothed, no-nonsense attitude and pacing indie sound. Bass played slightly higher up the neck a la New Order, drums that seem coated in mercury, and all topped off with vocals that purr and snarl like a streetwise tomcat, only to suddenly rise effortlessly into goosebump-inducing heights (Liam G eat your heart out). It's not new, but it's just so good... And they make it look so easy. Minimum effort, the definition of what cool should really be, not trying, just being.

Song after song pearls off the stage like a series of July showers, running down your skin with a smile, leaving no way to resist from the first note to the last. There's Happy Mondays and Charlatans in there, there's frowning happysadness, there's the feeling that you're listening to something that could very easily become big. But if it doesn't then it won't lose any value: this isn't about the hype, this is about the fact they're fucking good at what they do!

So they finish. Two different concepts as to what music should be, but one definite result: A crowd sheer dripping of enjoyment.

Final score then, 1:1. I couldn't decide who made me want to jump around crazy the most; go and see them both, then tell me, could you?

[Picture pinched from the promoters ace site @ rockfeedback.com]