Team Ghost / Sonic Hearts Foundation @ Broadcast, 10 April

Live Review by Bram E. Gieben | 16 Apr 2013

Despite the entire evening being beset with technical problems – vocals drift in and out, disappearing behind squalls of guitar feedback, and the overall mix is one-dimensional, a slab of sound rather than a wall – both bands manage to pull off convincing, muscular performances that shape the shoegaze template into sculptured, towering edifices of heavenly noise.

Glasgow's Sonic Hearts Foundation kick off proceedings, guitarist Brian Crawford stood in front of a pedal array the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer. Tracks from their forthcoming EP Into Forever are anchored by the powerful caterwaul of singer Anthony Henderson, his punk-rock sneer indebted as much to !!!'s Nic Offer as it is to Ian Brown or Joe Strummer. The music however is far from the standard indie punk-pop that is the stock-in-trade of so many Glasgow bands – 1984 pulses with looped synths, building towards an explosive climax; one track features a pedal effect on the bass that evokes dubstep and trap dynamics; while a culminative USA closes the set with doom-laden drums that recall early Killing Joke. There's a political heft to their lyrics, as suggested by the sampled Weatherman Underground speech on Decades.

The almost total lack of audible vocals throughout Team Ghost's superb set could have been a deal-breaker – fortunately the Frenchmen are performance veterans, and they adapt quickly, tearing through the vocal parts of highlights from their long-incubating debut LP Rituals as quickly as possible, and exploding into awesome riffage. Multi-instrumentalists, the band divide synth, guitar and vocal duties between ex-M83 founder member Nicolas Fromageau and synth wizard Benoit DeVilleneuve.

Dead Film Star is the poppiest moment, revelling in psychotropic synths and vocoder effects from De Villeneuve; Curtains and Somebody's Watching exude a dripping sexual tension; while the band's theme song, Team Ghost, is reconfigured as a six minute epic, full of hypnotic guitar textures and glacial synths. They play their hearts out, criss-crossing the stage to trade riffs and rock postures like the pros they undoubtedly are. They make the tiny venue reverberate and hum, filling it to bursting with their powerful stage presence. Two fantastic performances, marred but not spoiled by disappointing sound.

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