If the sizzling English weather of the last few weeks wasn't a make or breaker to staying outside, sitting at a computer monitor is assuredly not the best method to appreciate White Denim. Performing tracks from their "Workout Holiday", "Exposion" and "Fits" albums, they run the risk early on of being so damn lugubrious, so stoner slack racket, that it drags everything down with it. Thankfully that's not what happens here, as lead vocalist James Petralli lunges into an upsurge of quick-fire shouting amongst thorny guitar peaks, while the drummer regulates body temperature as if he's ploughing through ice in a chilly breeze. Heavy on a grungy, garage tint, their product is realistic but never cosmetic, eschewing traditional modes in favour of a wine glass of psychadelic merriness. Personal highlights of the set include the trashy, ramshackle gabber tempos of "Heart From Us All", the shuffly, ants-in-pants schizophrenia of "Ieiei"; scuzzy, Jethro Tull-on-lithium splendour of "Say What You Want", and all-out-guitar-and-indecipherable-language-barrier "El Hard Attack DCWYW".
The decisive flowing quality is that you're unsure where one tune starts and the subsequent begins. Instead of mapping cadences of silence to fill up the frenzy, each transition is a seamless collage of harsh feedback and percussive intermissions from guitarist and drummer respectively. And when I use respectively, that's loosely, for obedience of the vocalist is sparingly employed to guide the time-signature-switch-ups and rolling dynamic interludes between instruments. Through all of this, it's not tough to put your finger on why the full house of the 02 academy is raucous in support. Maybe it's the singer's rhythmic deviance where he goes off on a complete tangent but somehow remains anchored to coherency. Perhaps it's the additional wonder generated by the light show where red blends into blue and the darkness of the room beckons us asunder. Possibly it's the variation of the lyrical themes that keep the crowd bubbling, and that veers the show away from trite noisemaking. Personally, the talisman of enjoyment arises from recognising all of the above. Experimental fits: yes please.
White Denim: MySpace
Download: White Denim on eMusic
White Denim: Official website
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