The Hope and Anchor is one of those London venues that many bands would give their right arm(s) to play at, with a healthy dose of cool musical history (the venue was made famous during the emergence of Punk in the 1970's), and a great reputation for putting on quality unsigned indie bands.
So this venue is a bit of a musical Mecca, but let's not fall foul of judging a book by it's cover here - just because a band gets to gig there doesn't guarantee that they are going to be the next Franz Ferdinand.
AT THE LAKE gave a very good performance, they played well and they came across as well-polished and professional. My problem with their music was that they sounded exactly like every other band who wants to sound like the Joy Division, New Order, and any other early 80's post-punk band that the current Nu-wave music is based on. The only difference being that At The Lake look old enough to have been there the first time round, and I get the impression that they have been pounding out this sort of music for a lot longer than the existence of the current scene. Nothing wrong with that of course, in fact it probably adds to the authenticity of their music.
If anything though, they sounded pretty darn identical to music by the Editors (and therefore Joy Division, etc, etc). All their songs were in the same, depressingly minor key, every guitar solo was that screeching searing mono-note noise that was effective when the U2 first started to do it back in the early 80s, but now just bores the pants off me.
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I started to get slightly annoyed during the set. This band are clearly capable of making much more interesting music but it looks like they are sacrificing their musical integrity by jumping on the current bandwagon, and trying to make a quick buck.
Saying that, they do carry off this genre really well, and like I said, it was a polished performance, but it was lacking in passion and feeling, and I've heard so many of these bands before that nothing surprises me anymore.
If you like the Editors, and any band currently being touted by NME, XFM, et al., then do check out At The Lake, because they are a good band; they're just a little unimaginative for us music fans who expect a little more than the current norm.
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