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Review: 'Lydia Lunch & Weasel Walter's Brutal Measures'
'With MoE live at Corsica Studios London.'   


-  Genre: 'Industrial' -  Release Date: '15.2.18.'

Our Rating:
Yes this is as romantic a valentine's week show as you could want to go to, well maybe not, But Lydia Lunch is back in London with Weasel Walter to play a show called Brutal Measures so we know it's going to be a tough sounding show.

We got into The Corsica Studios just as support act MoE came on they are a three piece rock band from Norway who don't like to be thought of as a metal band, which is strange as for a good part of the set they sound like well a sludge metal band!

Yes the opening song although they have a female bass playing vocalist reminds me a lot of Megadeth crossed with Babes In Toyland as she screams about a Fight it was okay but nothing brilliant and yet still so much better than the support act Lydia had at her last London show.

As they really got going I found that I really liked the far more bass heavy sludgy tunes that really needed two basses rather than a Bass and Guitar as they seemed to try to be a bit like Band Of Susans crossed with Slayer and with MoE's singing being very much in the vein of Annette from Cay and Kat Bjelland.

The best song they had was introduced as being a song for Valerie Solanis and the lyrics sounded like they may have been taken from the S.C.U.M. Manifesto and were really angry and in our faces with a good pummelling motoric beat behind them.

Everything after that was sort of downhill as it they seemed to get sludgier and less interesting as the set went on I think for me they played a couple of songs too many, if you like Sludge metal bands that claim to be sludge or punk rock then MoE are worth checking out.

After the break it was time for Lydia Lunch and Weasel Walters Brutal Measures that feature Weasel on drums and a bunch of guitar pedals for electronics set up on a floor tom that initially are not loud enough on the drum solo that acts as the intro to the set it's hard but not stomach churningly brutal as it becomes when they sort the sound out.

The first piece Lydia reads is about how she Wants To Murder Again it's dark and twisted and leaves us in no doubt that this will not be the nice Lydia as she keeps trying to get the sound man to turn everything up to ear bleed levels as Weasel lets loose on his next drums and electronics assault everything kicks in and damn you can feel it in your boots.

The next piece is an old poem about how everything is The Same As It Ever Was as she slays the patriarchy and the idiots in charge and then the noise comes back to destroy our minds and our ears with a brutality that is just what I sort of expected.

Then as the noise dies back down Lydia starts to recite or almost sing Time the David Bowie classic but with Lydia's delivery it becomes far more dark and nasty than the dystopian original as she twists it and then finishes the piece with a few lines from 5 years as the apocalyptic drums come crashing in to signal the end of the world or some other disaster.

Then Lydia is ranting about the futile nature of the world right now or something along those lines in a dark piece that really needed the dark electronics and heavier than hell drums that follow it. That led into a re-working of In Limbo that was great to hear again slightly altered and updated but still every bit as nasty as it originally was.

As Weasel did his best to look like he was in a torture scene as he played his drums with one stick in his mouth as if to stop him screaming in agony Lydia started to rant and rave about her State Of Mind or was it the state of mind of the sheep who still want to fit in either way she told us that applause was not needed.

The brutality of the drumming and electronics that greeted a rant to tell her paramour that It's Alright If Your Over Me would have been perfect to chase said love down the street and into the gutter where they belong. After another burst of drums it was time for Lydia to ask some questions about The Evidence and what we do with it.

As the drum interlude calmed down Lydia then told us it was time to wrap things up and finished with 30 Days to Live or was it 30 minutes or 30 seconds as she seemed to count down to the end of the world or the end of the set that was marked by one last flourish of drums and they were gone. As you'd expect no encores and no expectation of one this was properly brutal as expected a good short sharp burst of Lydia and Weasel Walter.
  author: simonovitch

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