Having played with Editors, Youth Group and Yeti, to find out they had to share the stage with Thai Bride could, on tonight's showing, have been grounds for a no show. Thai Bride frontman Ricky le Bleu’s stage persona was like a depraved ménage a trois between Crackerjack’s Stu Pot, Darren Hayes and Justin Moorhouse. Churning out alt-rock dirge, if this was an afternoon festival slot, he’d have been ducking bottles of feculence by the second song. It seems the weather must have got to the band. When Gliss took to the stage, the Thai Bride following faded away, leaving a pretty poor smattering of folk to lend support to the headliners. They missed out. Gliss are a multi-talented, innately musical trio with epic, visceral drive. Maxing out feedback to the point of audience capitulation, Martin Klingman’s wispy, grasping, searching vocals take over and snake their way through almost hypnotic drum patterns, programmed instrumental stabs and imposing bass riffs. Between songs, instruments are interchanged between band members – the swap-shop proving most profitable when Victoria Cecilia straps on the bass; synchronised movements between woman and 4-string indicating something of a continuing Freudian relationship. Their sound is a paradox of stark richness. Velvet Stars and Kick in the Head stand out as spectral, aching calls to arms for a melancholic, world-weary generation. Gliss are heading to SxSW in March; hopefully this will act as a springboard to launch them way beyond the ignominy of wet basements.
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