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R*E*P*E*A*T Presents New Band's Night, The Cohort Effect, Little Hope, Alpha Road and Ascendia Don't let the name deceive you, this was not a night for angst ridden teens to deliver painful and embarrassing attempts at stardom. It was a night of quality, innovation, good music and good fun. Ascendia's drummer may look so much like a little kid that he has to get special permission from the nervous landlord to be allowed in the venue, but inside his slender frame is lurking the soul of a Dave Grohl or Tre Cool. The rest of the band don't let him down; ROCK with a capital R never sounded so good in small backroom on a wet Monday night in Cambridge. Their sound pours off the stage in a mix of power and beauty, reminding me of the best bits of My Chemical Romance forcibly liquidised with Ash in a huge poptastic sonic rock blender. www.ascendia.co.uk
Ascendia Alpha Road are a very powerful 3 piece, how do they get such a huge sound when there's only 3 of them? They remind me of the best of mid 90s power pop power trios; 5:30 (anyone remember them?) ram raiding with The Jam to steal some Supergrass magic. Melodies, songs and guitars, what more could you want? Did I mention that they're very powerful?! www.alpharoad.co.uk
Biggest blunder of the night: I mistook the guitarist from Little Hope for a groupie, and tried to charge her to get in! Her alternately lethargic and then intense stage presence fits the sound of the band perfectly (at one point it seems that, like Manic Richey, she's not even plugged in), as the band's stage antics mirror their songs. The sound is taut and tense, erupting into raw emotion and melody at all the right times, Frantic melodic vocals cut through the explosive guitars, which reminded sound engineer Ainsley of Nirvana. Little Hope have some postcards for people to fill in and post back to them in Leicester to tell them "how shit we are"; on this performance, they're anything but this! www.littlehope.moonfruit.com
The Cohort Effect finish off the evening with some atmospheric indie pop with a dark and bitter bite. Minor harmonies, unsettling guitar effects and creative use of dynamics makes for a sound which is captivating and slightly unusual, a bit like early Radiohead meeting Echo and the Bunnymen round the back of the bike sheds for a surreptitious listen to an old House of Love album. And the Strokes cover in the encore was a genius way to end the evening.www.thecohorteffect.co.uk Happy kids, grateful parents, no time to eat my tea, lost toilets, trips to the dentists during soundcheck, top music, pleasant punters, relieved landlords, everyone and their Mum searching for Richard Brown (hiding in the next door bar) to make them into stars - Monday nights rule! No egos, no wankers, no musos - just a night of good music. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!
Rosey R*E*P*E*A*T Commit daylight robbery about this review on our message boards here
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