Gig review: Stanley Odd/ Hector Bizerk, Glasgow

STANLEY Odd and Hector Bizerk may sound like characters from the Beano but are, in fact, two kindred hip-hop bands from either end of the M8, fronted by MCs who rap in broad Scottish accents.

Oran Mor

***

While attuning to their sound might require some adjustment of cultural prejudices, it does make it very easy for a home crowd to get the gist of their patter.

Both acts blended humorous storytelling, social comment and atypical musical backing – Hector Bizerk’s Party At A&E and Stanley Odd’s Pure Antihero Material being among the more instantly evocative numbers. The audience were on board well before the latter’s invitation to a nationwide pub crawl that is Join The Club and took great relish in turning both bands’ cartoony names into “here we go”-style terrace chants.

But while Glasgow contingent Hector Bizerk, who have expanded their core line-up of Royston rapper Louie Deadlife and drummer Audrey Tait to incorporate meaty, funky basslines and characterful synth effects, convinced more as a unit, Edinburgh six-piece Stanley Odd, whose second album, Reject, is on this year’s SAY Award shortlist, put on more of a performance.

There was something of the slam poet about rapper MC Solareye, whose earnest enunciations were précised in the call-and-response vocal hooklines of shrill singer Veronika Electronika, and dispatched over the somewhat anachronistic soul-rock backing supplied by the rest of the group, to create a distinctly Scot-hop style.