Gig review: We Were Promised Jetpacks

“I CANNAE hear s***,” noted one fan of cacophonous Edinburgh rock quartet We Were Promised Jetpacks out on Victoria Street after this performance.

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS

LIQUID ROOM, EDINBURGH

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The fact he was speaking louder than was really necessary suggested he might perhaps have taken the risky option of standing at the front of the hall, where the band’s wilfully punishing sound was at its loudest.

Beyond the rite of passage of teenaged fans throwing their arms in the air and aural caution to the wind along the crash barrier, there was also catharsis in such noise. This comeback show preceded the release of their second album In the Pit of the Stomach, which has been delayed for almost a year while guitarist Michael Palmer underwent treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It wasn’t mentioned here, but the relief at being back onstage was palpable.

The new tracks aren’t so much a step forward as an expansion of an already-strong catalogue, for example the slow-burn, epic power pop of the appropriately-named Picture of Health and Hard to Remember, a song with shades of the Jesus and Mary Chain which grinds in like industrial gears.

In their grand, unhurried instrumental breaks there are shades of Mogwai – although with the black humour replaced by a certain hopeful innocence – or a less earthy Glasvegas. And they often slipped back to the older, tauter punk-pop of Ships With Holes Will Sink and It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning. A sound worth filling your ears with.

DAVID POLLOCK