This was never going to be pretty. Right from stepping, almost quite literally, into the middle of Bilge Pump’s support slot it was evident that tonight was not for the faint of heart. Leeds very own three amigos had set up in the Brudenell’s main concert room in front of the stage proper, right in the heart of the crowd, a crowd of predominantly skulking, hirsute young men who were either in a garage band or had aspirations to be so. They stood and stared resolutely ahead as Bilge Pump lived up to their name, churning out a relentless dirty detritus of scuzzy rock. As some clarity finally tumbled from their cauldron of no wave noise, singer Emlyn Jones advised us that the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. It was suddenly abundantly clear exactly what he meant.
METZ soon followed and taking Bilge Pump’s lead they too dispensed with the formality of the stage. Sub Pop’s very own Canadians have welded the words power and trio into an altogether new meaning. They take a huge metal spoon to your head, slice off its top like some soft-boiled egg, scoop out your brains and then plug them back into the mains. For thirty five minutes your membranes are frazzled by surge upon surge of a post-Seattle electrical wipe out. Under the hood of this great hulking machine, though, lies melody and nuance, albeit knocked out and loaded into oblivion. An apocalyptic “Wet Blanket” signals the end of the show, if not the world, and you are merely grateful to get out of the Brudenell and into that cold January air with your brain back in its rightful place and what is left of your hearing still intact.
