Redjetson

Hentai are post-everything. One might go so far as to call them post-core, if one was in that kind of mood. There's a first song, a last song, and four and a half minutes of amps buzzing betwixt the two. When they're actually playing, it's all very pretty, a serpentine stream of twiddly guitar noises and token rumbling bits, but it goes nowhere. It feels like post-rock for the sake of post-rock. Which is no fun at all.

In sharp contrast, Redjetson are very clearly going somewhere. In the months since DiS first clapped eyes on them, they've mutated into something very special indeed. Words like 'seismic', 'monstrous', 'unfeasible' come to mind. A seemingly unassuming bunch, their latest trick is sending tremors through the aged floorboards of the Arts Cafe. Where before they incited grinning comparisons to Six By Seven, Joy Division, Idlewild, these now feel redundant; there isn't anyone around that sounds like this band. Within a small, controlled spectrum of notes anchored by stupefyingly massive bass, they conjure up speech-defying intensity, seething rage and tremulous despair. They master the same feat that Aereogramme do, in managing to simultaneously be extremely fragile and 'indie', and blindingly heavy, and yet never approaching the safe middle-ground between the two.

By the time they launch into 'Pieces Go Missing', their thunderous set-closer, all you can see is the white noise slowly creeping into the corners of your vision, obscuring all that is normal and reasonable and safe and unthreatening, as the ground seems to shift beneath your feet. As the band retreat from the stage, a roomful of people huddle with their hands clutched over their ears, cowering beneath a residual cloud of screeching feedback, and you find yourself wondering if these tectonic vibrations have been felt across the breadth of East London, or if it's limited to this room alone. Did the earth move for you too?