Purity Ring / Born Gold @ The Art School, 28 April

Live Review by George Sully | 12 May 2015

Brush your teeth; tonight’s a double helping of sugary, Canadian electro-wizardry, and the Art School’s bustling crowd is hungry for it. The billing’s particularly sympathetic, as the support – the hyperactive Born Gold – began life as Gobble Gobble, with none other than Purity Ring’s Megan James and Corin Roddick.

And the genre genes fit: frontman Cecil Frena is still peddling the same anthemic, turn-of-the-decade synth-driven electronica, albeit with the flavours tweaked towards a kind of dark, Nyan Cat-vibe glitch-punk. As the lights strobe, we catch glimpses of his flopping mop hovering over his neon synthpad, or his frantically strummed guitar. The uptempo dance-music sensibilities keep the audience hooked, and Frena’s earnest banter, nasal punk vocal, and synchronised dance moves ensure we’re ready for the next course.

Where Born Gold have boundless, goofy energy, Purity Ring have vision, and heaps of it. Since touring debut Shrines, with Roddick’s innovative gemstone-lantern synth rig, this duo have harvested enough XP to level up the show considerably. For Another Eternity, James sports a skin-tight white body suit, pointy-shouldered like the captain of a space opera, while Roddick returns to his lanterns, only now surrounded by a ceiling-height forest of reactive festive lights. And the procedural, engineered approach to the new record finally makes sense, when the live event is this damn mesmeric. Who else plays a light-keyboard with mirrored gloves?

The new album leads the set: the bassy Stranger Than Earth and Push Pull to start, showcasing the duo’s sonic and luminous ambition. Favourites from Shrines are smartly scaled up, satisfyingly pastel-hued and dazzling (Obedear, Belispeaks and Fineshrines, oh yes). Writ large, Purity Ring are a sophisticated act, not soulless but committed, synaesthetic, and most importantly captivating. [George Sully]

http://purityringthing.com