Holy Mountain / Happy Particles / Body Parts @ Mono, 5 May
From the divine to the ridiculously heavy, as Holy Mountain kick out jams straddling the vintage and the envelope-pushing.
Raising a middle-finger to genre cohesion, Holy Mountain have invited two none-more-different supports to help launch Earth Measures. We don’t know much about Body Parts, but first impressions are favourable: sweet vocal harmonies plus guitar, violin and fluttering handclaps, with shades of First Aid Kit, a scattering of Tune-Yards and an ingenuously relaxed stage presence that goes a long way towards breaking through the room’s chitchat..
Outside, the night sky apparently hosts a ‘supermoon’ tonight; the phenomenon where the moon orbits closer to the Earth, and consequently appears brighter and bigger. For those fond of gazing skywards, we can’t think of a better soundtrack than Happy Particles' musica universalis. Steven Kane’s celestial falsetto holds attentions tight as the band float through sedately-paced selections from lustrous debut Under Sleeping Waves; utterly at odds with the sludgy barrage that follows, but brilliantly so.
From the divine to the ridiculously heavy, as Holy Mountain kick out jams straddling the vintage and the envelope-pushing. The trio know when to exert moderation and when to cut loose; coiling tight then releasing the tension in wild displays of abandon. Like Body Parts (who concluded with their take on JLS’s Beat Again), Holy Mountain close with a cover, but not one you could accuse of irony. Their faithfully-heavy War Pigs is a powerhouse marathon, signing the night off with a forceful dose of drama. Oh lord yeah. [Chris Buckle]