Live Review

Metronomy – Liverpool 02 Academy

• 23rd Jan 2011

…And they came from outer space. Out of the darkness, four beings came with bright lights emanating from where their hearts are like a loved up, over indulgent Doctor Who. It feels Frankenstein’s unnatural creation as the lights emanate and flash more frantically than Tom Cruise on a couch. But they haven’t come here in threat of taking over Earth. They’ve come in peace. They are Metronomy.

Tonight, in Liverpool of all places, they’re like a modern Fab Four. Wearing matching shirts and jeans, this is what the Beatles would look like if they were still around whilst embracing Lennon’s crazy experimentation. It’s Harrison nursing Starr as he lies unconscious on a table, fucked up on LSD whilst McCartney and Lennon are enclosed in a car park with chains at their fists. Yes, there’s a modest look to the Devonshire quartet as the blood rushes to Liverpool’s 02 Academy but the hearts (My Heart Rate Rapid and Heartbreaker) beat with all the rush and excitement of a graveyard shift worker on 20 cans of Red Bull. Bassist’ Gbenga Adelekan is this worker as he jumps like some horny, sex starved rabbit.

It takes the silent swagger of Prince, with the explosion of an Icelandic volcano to create instrumental music that burns with just the same intensity as your vocal filled work. But Metronomy do divulge in the same eccentricity of Prince without the awkward quietness. On the Motorway is a sane Mad Hatter about to cross the border into insanity and go apocalyptic like an oil company. The End of You Too is someone in distress, dialling Morse code as it hammers through your brain like a rabid woodpecker, whilst Radio Ladio combines the funky, sexual charisma of 70’s funk with a futuristic, robotic brothel.

It’s probably for the best that Metronomy stay and don’t go for an encore. It’s one hell of a party and if they did go off, everything might have died down faster than Hugh Heffner without viagra. Metronomy take everything that you’d expect from Devon, the tranquil images, the cider and turn it into the dystopia that is A Clockwork Orange.