InMe @ Waterfront, Norwich
A great gig at the Waterfront
Most of my home county was moving to the grooves of early noughties R’n’B way back when in 2003. But someone, somewhere (and by somewhere I probably mean a dodgy skate park) would be playing some angsty guitar tunes through their terrible phone. This was how I first encountered the album Overgrown Eden. Ah, sweet youth! But tonight sees former mainstays of any respectable alternative playlist InMe gracing the Waterfront stage to push their songs through an infinitely superior set of speakers.
It’s good news, folks. They remain unblunted as a force with nearly 20 years of momentum working to distil the raw honesty of the genre into something honed and technically riveting. Dave McPherson stands to the fore, moving flawlessly from full-bellied Essex roar to that piercing falsetto time and again, unruffled by technical problems that are causing equipment to break all over the shop. There’s a crispness to InMe’s delivery that eludes a great deal of heavy acts, a domination over the complex layers of their music that makes them as compelling to watch as they are to listen to, like looking into the workings of a really gritty, shouty clock that also happens to be proficient at tapping on a five-string bass and spits at you every hour. Everything from old favourites Firefly and Myths and Photographs to the more recent Reverie Shores comes flooding out with gusto and swagger, stapled together with filthy heavy breakdowns heaving with distortion. It’s a rare triumph in a scene that often feels so close to dying out and gives you every reason for wanting it to stay alive.
