Part of the beauty of British music is the element of surprise. Every now and then an act will surface with infinite potential who spontaneously quash the acts of our nation with a hoard of innovative anthems that take the future of British music into their own hands.
Currently, I feel, our music scene is littered with countless false-heroes whose exaggerated and over-hyped musical creations are blown out of proportion by the British music press. Acts such as Little Boots, La Roux and Esser, to name a few, have been praised as the unprecedented genius's of the future - for some reason for another, and I have to say, I disagree...
New music sections in the press seem to constantly rave about the indolent synthesiser-wielding, talentless mongs whose button pressing antics stain the airwaves and sodomise the scene we so endlessly adore. Perhaps I just don't get these new acts. Perhaps I'm ill-informed, big headed and set in my ways. Perhaps I am in fact the one who follows the no-hopers, the anthem-absent and the down-right shit. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I'm right...
On Monday night I made yet another trip to the country's capital. Three train stops, one long drinking session in a local pub and one new club night in Kingston was all it took to transport me to another realm in which I witnessed possibly the greatest new band in the country.
There was no peripheral frills, no deceitful gimmickry, no style-over-substance counterfeit crappary, just in-your-face colossal tunes that blew the cobwebs from the strippers crutch's who reside in the seedy pound-in-pot perv-hole around the corner from the club. Myself, and everyone else in the room, witnessed what can only be described as one of the most profound acts of the noughties. Life-changing almost.
Them:Youth...heard of them? It's doubtful to be honest, but it wont take long. In between the scummy alleys, disheveled boozers and decrepit ex-con characters who litter the area lies an aura of urban-romantacism and untold affection of working class love: an orbiting haven that Them:Youth have honed with style and perfection.
Their gargantuan dance-fuelled, rock and roll aided, esoteric ballads of euphoric destruction are comparable to New Order meets Joy Division in an age of technological advancement, swirled uncontrollably with the power-house incendiary jaw-droppers of Spiritualized mounting The Music.
"F.R.A.C.E" greets the crowd like an explosion of volcanic-noise and frontman Mark Buckle looks possessed by some sort of ghost of Ian Curtis past. Demonic, rolled back eyes and frantic-cavorts make him a spectacle in his own right. It's not until guitarist Ilan near-mounts Buckle as he thrashed through "Lost and Lonely" that the potential is truly realised. It's a partnership, a duo of power and brilliance - captivating, bewitching and hypnotic to watch and it's what these seminal moments are made of.
The ecstasy of "Bow and Arrows" consumes everything you thought you knew about music, but not before the rock and roll rapturous ceremony is closed by one final heavy-handed kick in the nuts with "Halo". Guitarist Alan McBride, by this time, looks elated as he thrashes through a screaming-wave of anthemic noise that cuts through the crowd like frenzied fret-board attack. And then, as soon as it began, it was over. In just thirty odd minutes everything, and I mean that from the depths of my soul, everything I loved about music changed, because now hope is creeping on the horizon.
The thing is though, the one thing that makes this outfit so indescribably beautiful is that these are regular lads who don't obnoxiously demonstrate their sublime capabilities. They work nine-to-five jobs in the day, but when their clocked off, when they leave the office or the bars they work behind they become heroes of the night, gods of the stage and idols of the future.
It's comforting to see a band like this. I wont get on to their image because fashion has very little to do with it, but they look cool as fuck. And what they do, and do well, isn't being done at the moment. A noise so scorchingly profound and heart-breaking hit the atmosphere that Monday night that it could quite possibly change British music, forever.
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