It’s staggering how a band with one 7” and a Split 7” can steal a night away, considering Purity Ring’s exposure has primarily been from Pitchfork’s BNM accolades it comes as no surprise that the venue was packed.
Its staggering how a band with one 7 and a Split 7 can steal a night away, considering Purity Rings exposure has primarily been from Pitchforks BNM accolades it comes as no surprise that the venue was packed, before I talk about the main act, lets mention the support first. First off we had Doldrums the Toronto producer and singer, to describe his sound is like playing all the MTV channels at the same time whilst Aphex Twin twists them to noise inducing terror, it was hard to listen to with all channels swimming with a different annoying high pitch sound, after a while they started to click into place and make a beat then eventually make sense. Then his vocals came into play, the easiest comparison is Justin Bieber in terms of vocals, but a Bieber whos committed to doing high notes. I understood the beats but not the vocals, they didnt seem to fit or suit the sound, I could like this more if there were no vocals or he changed his singing style. Secondly we had Theme Park, these guys were a real surprise, helped by some brilliant sound check getting all the instruments at the perfect balance, never sounding distorted or distant. They reminded me of Bloc Partys Silent Alarm era though, Silent Alarm had a wintery vibe to it, they were quite the opposite, there guitars seemed to sway like palm trees and the vocals seem to be reminiscent of brighter times. The tracks were solid and I thought theyd stole the night, for such a new and young band they have the maturity and talent of a band going for over a decade, a brilliant band to watch out for. Then finally we have Purity Ring, before they performed I bumped into Megan, the groups singer, shes sweet, polite and incredibly diligent, she also signed a poster for me writing down a poem off the top of her head really, it goes to show that shes a brilliant Poet/Lyricist to come up with something on the spot and it shows in the quality of her lyrics, singing wise shes also brilliant, never pushing her voice till it breaks, she sounds exactly like on the records and its the sign of a true talent. They performed with what I can only assume is a custom made instrument, the best way to describe it is a plumbing job gone very wrong, copper pipes connected to one another like a small bonsai tree with LED lights at the end of the pipes to add to the light show they provided, it also has touch sensors so when hit the notes change, its an impressive piece of kit but the amount of times they were moving the pipes back into place almost seemed like a gimmick. The light show and theme was also impressive, it had a steam punk vibe to it along with the music which sounds futuristic at the same time. The new songs were also impressive, unfortunately they had no set list to look at so I cant really name the songs apart from the ones that have been released thus far, though I can quickly describe them as a whole, they sound bright, huge and futuristic, there is nothing else like them at the moment, its almost like a new genre but they never became annoying it certainly makes you look forward to the upcoming album. Enough praise cant be said about the live mixing, an extremely hard thing to do, to put the vocals through a sampler to mix live is incredibly hard, though there were mistakes, they pulled it off and its one of the many reasons they are a band to watch and to be excited for.