Clout / The Black Belles / The Horrors @ Southend Chinnerys - 9th May 2012

On a night with a sensational crowd present amassing to well over 100+, three bands took to the stage to deliver an almighty blast of rock music, Clout, Black Belles and The Horrors all graced the stage.

Clout, a local quintet playing a straight chemical mix of orchestrated blues rock with jazz thrown in. At times the band seemed to know what they were doing, but this changed from second to second; amazingly they are one of those bands hard to genre-tag, experimental rock is perhaps the closest you can get. They managed to hold a captivating performance of which seems to be marred by the visual look of interaction - just mere playing, no action, just playing. Sadly the audio was not perfect as the jazz player seemed non existant at times, he was playing but no sound was emitting, perhaps the metal lost it's musical conductor. However it was an interesting sight to see the musicians change instruments - jazz to keyboards, drummer to guitars etc. The sound however is nothing new, but with a pinch of divergence here and there, the band without a doubt has conjured up a strangely bizarre sound. However for a relatively short set, the quintet have a great sound, organisation, composure and stage presence, but seem to lack that total panache, but are not far from reaching it [7].

< Olivia Jean clawing her nails into the gloomy Southend atmosphere.











The all women quartet from Nashville, Tennessee utilised a Hard Rock / Heavy Metal / Goth Rock sound, by bringing out the best in rock with a sensational blend of 'bar rock' and true southern state class and rickety rock-n-roll. So much for tornado alley not predicting this storm to be sent across the Atlantic Ocean. In fact the continual shedding of distortion became powerful enough to blow holes in the ceiling. Ironically, when four female musicians came out to shake the foundations of Southend Chinnerys, the predicted 'male-army-en-mass' soon congregated, out-crowding any football league derby attendance, Southend United must be envious. Let alone the dress code being imperfectly smart and to-the-point 'on official business'; even the music aided as an official clarification that the quartet are not to be messed with, since when did Hayley Williams quadruplicate into goths? [8.5]

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< No one told The Horrors that heaven was behind them.












< Faris Badwan could not believe his eyes seeing someone down 4 shots of Jack Daniels at once.









Full of gusto and rhythmic composition, the headlining Southend-based experimental, space, goth, every-subgenre of rock band The Horrors delivered a total ecliptic version of pure class with a light-coveted display of fuel-injected red and white light - correlating the potential of embedding English rock in the pits of experimental audibility and emphatically shedding out the dark and D.I.Y. sound of 'horroresque' stature. Wihout a question one of the finest modern rock bands England has ever produced in the past five years. A sensational live performance on the night, making the albums an appetiser in their menu of rock sounds, one would pin their performance to the dessert section, a delicious slice of rock cake. Honing in on their native town, The Horrors made no errors as they show off an array of atoned pedigree and the ability in not failing to disappoint, even Jimi Hendrix would salute this lot. Revitalising the crowd into complete psychedelia, The Horrors are without any compromise and take no substitutes without delivering what is perceived to be the most captivating gig of-yet-to-be 2012 [9].

RHYS STEVENSON

https://www.facebook.com/SPEAKYACLOUT
https://www.facebook.com/theblackbelles
https://www.facebook.com/horrorsofficial

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