To celebrate the release of ‘WHATEVER’, Sheffield’s two-man emo act
Nai Harvest
held a record launch party at Fitzherbert’s. Copies of the record with
limited edition covers would be available to buy at the show, assuming
Nai Harvest ever arrived at the venue. Thankfully, they did. And it was
great.
I guess it was something to do with the bad weather we have been
having lately, and the fact it’s probably worse up t’north. Or maybe
their car or van broke down? Or got stuck in traffic? Or maybe just the
fact Sheffield is quite far away from Brighton? I don’t know, I never
bothered to find out. Whatever the reason, it seemed everybody was a bit
worried as to whether Nai Harvest would make it to their gig before
they were due to play.
Their tardiness caused them to miss the supports, the first of which were absolutely incredible.
Disembarked
are from Stockholm, Sweden and play aggressive, emotional
hardcore/screamo with plenty of post-rock instrumental sections and
vox-only scream-a-thons. Imagine Explosions In The Sky crossed with
Pianos Become The Teeth but with a completely insane drummer. The
drummer really was the focus of everybody’s attention during their set,
screaming along without a mic and still sounding almost as loud as the
vocalist, jumping up from his stool to give his kit an even harder
bashing and generally just being amazing on the drums. It’s actually
quite lucky he wasn’t wearing a shirt as he would’ve probably hulked
straight out of it the way he was playing! Their new record ‘I Do
Nothing But Regret The Fact That I Left’ is available now through Dog
Knights Productions and is definitely worth checking out.
Moose Blood
followed this, and trust me, you’ve got to have something special up
your sleeve to follow a set like the one Disembarked just played.
I had been really looking forward to seeing Moose Blood for a while,
having rinsed the life out of their debut EP ‘Moving Home’ since it was
released a few months back. ‘Moving Home’ is a brilliantly produced six
track collection of songs about relationships, coffee and listening to
other emo bands, with girls, presumably whilst drinking coffee. Remember
the first two Brand New albums? The good ones? Well, Moose Blood are a
bit like the Canterbury equivalent of that – layered vocals and catchy
songs that are guaranteed to stick in your head. Unfortunately, it
wasn’t to be Moose Blood’s night. I was quite disappointed and it all
sounded a bit messy. The size and setup of this tiny venue can sometimes
play a huge disadvantage to bands, which is something I’ve highlighted
before
. People that hadn’t previously heard them but were aware
of the hype surrounding their EP were probably even more confused than I
was. The vocalist lacked the Jesse Lacey-esque vocals that ‘Moving
Home’ really benefits from, often struggling to finish verses and not
hitting the notes. It almost made them sound a bit like a teenage school
rock band, despite knowing they are actually great songwriters. EP
closer ‘Bukowski’ was the best one they played, although it wasn’t the
moment I had been so eagerly anticipating. I don’t want to put anybody
off of Moose Blood because I think they’ll go quite far, and I’m hoping I
just caught them on a bad night.
Glasgow’s
The Sinking Feeling
were up next. To be honest, I don’t really have very much to say about
them. They sounded pretty tight but were nothing special. They were a
bit like Basement, or Daylight, but it all felt slightly like they were
jumping on that bandwagon without really doing anything original or
different. I ended up going for a rollie even though it was ridiculously
cold outside, because I was bored.
So,
Nai Harvest
eventually turned up! At this point I came back in from my
finger-freezing cigarette and it seemed as if the venue had emptied out
somewhat. However, almost everybody had just pushed forward to surround
the pair for the start of their set. As soon as they began, the place
exploded and the crossed-armed head-nodding curiosity of the crowd so
far was replaced with a fuckload of enthusiastic chanting, and
crowd-surfing that literally didn’t stop for the entire time they were
playing. Although the carnage did cause the guitar to cut out a couple
of times, which isn’t ideal when your music consists of just two
instruments. It’s likely to be even more annoying when you’ve already
spent all afternoon and most of the evening trying to get to the gig.
There were smiles all around though, and the band clearly appreciated
how stoked everybody was to be watching them. A sweaty, beer-soaked
twenty minutes later and Nai Harvest had reached the end of their set.
Having been given the green light to play one more, they burst into an
unexpected cover of Nirvana’s ‘Territorial Pissings’ – there were people
flying everywhere and the mic was getting passed around the room with
anyone that could get their hands on it “singing” along. A few minutes
of complete madness to top off an already crazy set. That record got
RELEASED!
Nai Harvest Bandcamp
Moose Blood Bandcamp
Disembarked Bandcamp
The Sinking Feeling Bandcamp
The Haunt, Wednesday 22nd
May
