It’s the least wonderful time of the year, the coldest night in months, but tonight music defeats the weather, especially as I have such a vested interest in proceedings.
It’s never easy writing your ‘tips of the year’ lists. There’s always the fear that the band you say are going to have a stellar 12 months could go into hiatus, release some rubbish material or even split up.
But when I was writing mine for 2024 there was an easy choice for me and that’s why these conditions have been braved.
Lynskey describe themselves as a north-west based ‘dance punk duo’ (which should be enough to draw you in), who popped up on our radar with an excellent slot supporting the equally excellent Meryl Streek last year.
Their first two EPs are already up on Spotify with a third imminent, so we were intrigued as to how things were progressing live ahead of the new material.
There’s a real recent trend for noisy two-piece guitar and drum beasts, and with the sheer volume emanating from immense opener ‘kickIT!’ it’s easy to understand why.
One of the main selling points to Lynskey is that they have a natural front-person in the shape of B, who exudes confidence, even discussing their ADHD diagnosis before the aptly titled ‘You Got The Scatterbrain’, and gracious enough to thank all the support bands and everyone who helped to put the gig on, their first Liverpool headline gig.
Having a keyboard as well gives them plenty more places to go, enabling them to have more layers than your normal guitar & drums combo.
‘Something Else In 5/4’, they claim isn’t danceable but the crowd in a rammed Jacaranda give it a good go.
On the third EP there’s gonna be a great song about how much B is in love with Keanu Reeves, and to prove it has a somewhat terrifying mannequin-type representation of the actor which makes its way through the crowd.
‘M-m-m-metal’ is just that, a noisy scrawny interlude, one of the fiercer number in a feisty set. Then there’s a call out from the stage for ‘the geeks and gamers’ but as a 51 year old who is neither then this somewhat passes me by being as it as a cover of the Mii Channel music (hopefully that means something to you youngsters).
Like all good new bands, they leave the already released stuff to the second half, ‘Kinda Tastes Like Iron’ hits hard with its pre-chorus Bloc Party synths and tribal drumming and the self explanatory ‘Gender Stuff.’
There’s plenty of venom within each song, like what Royal Blood should have ended up as if they hadn’t become so dull.
There’s a palpable onstage trepidation when unfurling some of the new tracks, but no need to worry as they are pushing the sound envelope forward. They make an ideal duo with Saul on the drums absolutely battering his kit throughout. And it turns out him and B are cousins, which leads to a heartwarming chat about family Christmas dinners which warms our heart even in the winter’s evening.
”Encores are for Gary Numan and no-one else”, so that’s our the cue for the last song of the night, and it’s the already released live favourite ‘DUB Me Into My Estate Agent’, which is very reminiscent of early Soft Play, who you would imagine would serve as an obvious trailblazer.
It’s quite the rare thing these days for a Liverpool crowd to turn out to see a lesser known band so it’s so pleasing to see so many people are onto Lynskey at such an early stage.
Me and my prediction seemingly has nothing to worry about.
