Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Venue reviews Animals and Men gig

"Not often you see a guitarist who's a ringer for Mark Lawson. If you do, it's most certainly not in anything as thrillingly vital as this. To gauge an idea of the Animals and Men purity level, check out the drums, a full kit save for cymbals, those peskily autonomous creations wont to generate unsupervised sound for a good millisecond or two. This is all about economy, each track two minutes and out, everything absolutely bone lean, from bubbling bass to chopped guitar to utterly unfussy deadpan vocals, together concocting a post-punk brew that makes its key benefactor - the Bo Diddley beat - sound frivolous by comparison. That the band are relatively newly reformed, gigging Bristol for the first time in 18 years (More like 29 or something around that - Ralph), seems barely conceivable, with every track a prospective national anthem for the utopian nation of Utilitarianism. Venue leaves silently uttering a single mantra: bring back discipline. (Julian Owen)."

also

http://www.crackerjack.co.uk/bristol/events/animals-and-men/fleece-music