Beak> & The Hysterical Injury

First up are the sister/brother duo THE HYSTERICAL INJURY. Annie takes bass and vocals, with Tom on drums. Their sound is heavy but melodic and surprisingly danceable. The doomier stuff comes on like Sunn 0))) whilst the more upbeat numbers have a post-punk/goth bass sound and are reminiscent of the Banshees, PINS or L//nes. Annie’s vocals range from childlike to a full blown roar that brings to mind both Laura (She Makes War) Kidd and Karin (Fever Ray/The Knife) Dreijer. Using my soon to be patented how-long-before-I-look-at-my-watch measure as to how good a set is, the Hysterical Injury come up trumps as I don’t check the time once. And I am so impressed that I buy the two LPs and EP they have on sale.

BEAK>, unfortunately, don’t do it for me to the same degree. On paper, I should absolutely adore them and a lot of the set is great but adore them I do not. When they hit the spot, the mix of Amon Düül II krautrock, Jean-Michel Jarre Gallic electronics, Hawkwind psych, Broadcast hauntology and Mogwai post-rock is utterly sublime and I lose myself completely. At other times, though, it just gets a little tedious and falls into territory that Crippled Black Phoenix and Black Mountain, to name but two, do better. I find the between song chitchat a bit tiresome. That said, BEAK> hold the whole audience – except, it seems, me – utterly spellbound and keep them entertained with that banter. Hey ho, for whatever reason, it was just one of those sets where I wasn’t feeling it and I ended up out of touch with my fellow gig goers.