Live Review

Young Guns – Harry’s Bar, Stoke

• 30th Jul 2009

With a lead singer upholstered in the sleeveless glam-rock styles of a late-era Eighteen Visions, Kerrang Best New Comer stars Young Guns rep and stage presence straight away seem, well, slightly incongruous against the scale of Stoke’s Harrys Bar’s with its alcoved t-shaped drama-church hall stage and matchbox dancefloor.

With the first few notes, they evoke to a gulp that popular and popularly maligned genre formerly known as Emo-core; galloping eighties hair-metal sound interwoven with the candle-lyricism of American sunset beach drama’s—shreds, tees and sympathy and, at each turn careering into a punk paced chorus which owes something to Brand New and the Used, driving the songs from sappiness into a jerky melodicised angst. Then, on a hairpin, they slow it down—allow a Goth flavoured bottom E string to react against the very slick guitar licks to Cure your angst and a pause stretched drum-skin taut with a Bauhaus meets the Church post-punk spaceyness, before muscular art-rock phat chords fire over. Or the staccato stomping forms taken from the thrash metal tradition on ‘There Will be Rain’.

Sensitive and harsh, Young Guns are pretty much the archetypal modern car-crash post-emo band, which is in one sense to say they’re at the zenith of their genre, and yet by bringing all those influences risk losing their slow magnetism for the sake of a crowd-pleaser, or resorting to the golden cage of a liquid fret-work proficiency. Somewhere beneath the medley record collections are tasteful mid section collapses just a key switch away from really jingling your spine, a jarring baritone grunge purses under clockwork picked clean-note sections. Which, outside their frontman, is where hope lies; exemplified in ‘Way of the World’ as delay pedals dangerously echo back upon themselves, before launching into a gooey speed-crackling chorus and then low -churning palm-mute clutch riffs akin to Mondo Generators. Against the venue’s muddy soundsystem best suited to hardcore and grimy shoe-gazers, they come across as a total ‘note-for-note record to stage replicating’ cut-above band. It just nags at you that in some ways they also come across as well versed rather than truly surprising. With one exception, from ‘Daughter of the Sea’ onwards, lead singer Gustav ‘s pipes which- as support band vocalist Anthony assured us moments before– frankly rival any on the scene. He demurs when you compare his technique to Havelok or Daryl Palumbo, but those post-hardcore wracked and choir-song two fold melody-twist vocals are all over those noise battering lung bursts, complimented by two and three fold harmonising pillows of blistering air.

The classic heaven and hell marriage of interweaving high-slung guitar and bass-soaked undertow, turns occasionally emotive in that Deftones/Tool style way-although always framed by the polyrhythmic time-signature corkscrew segues familiar to the scene—any hard-rock scene—these days. And sprinkled across the scene and Scene are post-rock chimes, wreaths and stains and lipstick in the wallpaper of the imaginary party’s 2am stages. Which is where their audience seem to have emerged straight from, especially , cue the irony reactor, when faced with those crowd- pleasing bursts. It’s true that occasionally the alternating density and dance-along old-style sections ala early Thursday, translate into febrile chants amongst the spectators but there’s always something surreal about seeing a headline band hit all the notes whilst 80% of the audience bob mutely like they’re at a Low concert.

Which is why you’d like of like to learn and discern the lyrics—Gustav’s vocals are clear peals mashing into each other – first, to look at whether-how they differ from the usual ab-ba meme fare. To argue that they summon up the old folk, indie and later touring hardcore tradition- where you have to commit to a band, become a participant in pouring over stuff to shout back and hanging on the stop-start journey’s of each-song-to really appreciate them beyond the casual sounds. Dylan basically uses the same 4 chords every time right, and how often could you honestly tell one Minor Threat song at first glance from another.

There’s no reason they shouldn’t be on MTV. Young Guns are swaggering, abrasive and spicy enough in their proficiency, their punk-hooks familiar and instinctively cunning as jazz-standards-to take their place on the playlists. The hooks aren’t lethal, nor do they represent that kind of inverse anti-hook- the breath suspended weirdness of art-rock- but that’s ok. Young Guns reference lots of indie in their pedal tones but compositionally they’re the epitome of those familiar, warm and slightly foxy heartaches which totally work, in the best possible way, as melodies for lightly macsara’d extras in music videos to dance to. Would it then be a double –edged compliment to say I’d like to think they Will do what they could do; find some fresh sequences whilst retaining their sincerity and chops.