Gig review: Vessels

Published on 23/11/2012 01:58

No truly exciting city can ever have too many dark basements playing music that is under the radar and out of the ordinary, and Broadcast – less than a month open and already building a strong following – is just the latest addition to an influx of such venues at the point where Glasgow’s Charing Cross and Sauchiehall Street converge.

Venue: Broadcast, Glasgow

Rating: * * * *

Review: David Pollock

The new bar and venue is a great place to hear music, a low-ceilinged crypt that contains sound close overhead.

The unheralded but excellent Leeds group Vessels were the perfect band to experience here, a thrilling hybrid of post-rock and dense but danceable electronica, which benefited from a space which recreated the music faithfully while allowing for a live bass crunch that rattled through the sternum.

With two low-key album releases behind them on indie label Cuckundoo and new material on the way, the quintet were propelled for the most part here by three banks of synthesisers alongside a squalling guitar and live drums.

A set of textured digi-acoustic genre-matching in the spirit of everyone from Eno to electronic legend Modeselektor followed, a blend of cold beats, mountainous guitar and battering minimal techno.

“If you’ve seen us before, you’ll notice we have about seven fewer guitars on stage than usual,” we were told, emphasising a welcome shift towards the digital being premiered here. “It’s 2012, so we decided to stop hiding behind guitars and hide behind computers instead.”