Gig review: Robots in Disguise

Published on Tuesday 30 March 2010 19:03

ROBOTS IN DISGUISE *** ABC2, GLASGOW

FOREVER destined to be known as "that band off The Mighty Boosh" and in the case of singer and guitarist Dee Plume, ne Delia Gaitskell, the sometime girlfriend of the show's star Noel Fielding, you get the feeling Robots in Disguise have painted themselves into a corner.

Formed at the University of Liverpool a decade ago, the duo of Plume and Sue Denim (Suzanne Powell), and their live drummer Ann Droid (Gemma Hill), reek of the sort of Camdenite pop art superficiality which defined the last decade's most transient bands.

Frontgirls Plume and Denim both wear viciously straight-edged haircuts which probably cost more than they took from this show, and their figure-hugging jumpsuits with sewn-on rubber patches accentuate the impression of a band which formed so that its members could show off onstage.

The vocals are girlish yelps reminiscent of teenage girls holding hairbrush microphones in front of the bedroom mirror, and there's a vapidity to match during certain songs. Don't Go's "Oh no, don't go" chorus, for example, plumbs uninspired depths.

Yet there's a certain endearing substance to this pretty pair's undoubted style. Berlin is a highlight, its "I live in Berlin, I'm a European!" chorus simultaneously celebrating and poking fun at fellow migr femme-punks to the city, like Le Tigre, Peaches and Electrelane.

There are also some furiously danceable songs here, for example the bass-driven I'm Hit and the disco-styled La Nuit. They were, quite literally, wasted on TV.