Joe Gideon & The Shark @ Cabaret Voltaire
The rumbling applause says it all: Joe Gideon & The Shark has earned its stripes
A boy/girl pairing of sludgy blues rock, Joe Gideon & The Shark's stripes are anything but white. While their rancourous guitar and propulsive drums conjure up inevitable Meg & Jack comparisons, the generation Ipod diatribes of debut LP Harum Scarum are more attuned to Mark E. Smith's shamanic frazzles. Gratefully, tonight's brutal boot-kicking goes a long way to dispelling any too-easy parallels. Switching between infested-swamp stomps and pious testaments, the London-dwelling siblings hack away at the listener's consciousness with a pickaxe of splintered riffs and chiselled percussion. Frontman Joe Gideon spits every tongue-knotting stanza with the vigour of a deranged street preacher; while sister Viva's limbs flail from drum to ceiling like an elasticised Kate Bush. And once closing zenith Anything You Love That Much You Will See Again soars off into the ether the rumbling applause says it all: this band has earned its stripes.