I’m going to admit it right now. I knew next to nothing of The Wytches before I walked through the door of Nice n Sleazy. To find out when the band announced it from the stage that they have just released album number FIVE, my first thought was, seriously were this lot recording albums when they were but mere foetuses?
I know that sounded like the old “Aren’t doctors getting younger days” cliché…anyway before the Brighton four piece took to the stage it was the turn of Newcastle’s Melanie Baker, both lead singer and band name…, they played an outstanding support set of new songs “all these songs are unreleased” as they unleashed a set of quirky energetic indie rock songs with themes of everything from basically telling people to mind their own business to…. well, Slugs… Melanie I don’t want slugs in my cupboard either, believe me. I’m keeping my eyes and ears peeled for that album…
I’m glad I wasn’t positioned in front of a speaker stack for The Wytches set, my aging ears are in a bad enough state. The band produced a sheer wall of heavy fuzzy grunge noise from the outset (believe me, even the walls in the toilet were vibrating.) As is my want, I was ticking off the boxes of influences as I listened… overall the band gave off a stoner/doom rock vibe but with all sorts of things going on beneath that wall of noise.
I was hearing everything from melodies that recalled The Byrds, bluesy rock that could only have come from the influence of The Rolling Stones, vocal inflections that had Kurt Cobain written all over them, songs that sounded like Frogstomp era Silverchair and The Cramps styled garage rock riffs. Pretty much something for everyone.
And the Wednesday night crowd in Sleazys were lapping it up with an enthusiastic pit forming. The last times I remember such a fracas, it was for Soapbox and San Jose and I was slap bang in the middle of it all, but this time I had my sensible Wednesday night, work in the morning head on. They might have lost me for a bit mid set when the guitar noodling went on a bit for me, but overall this old bloke left with a smile on his face, and still wondering wondering how the fresh faced quartet had managed to have five albums released when they still looked so young… My Bloody Valentine and The Stone Roses take note…