Deerhunter/HEALTH/Crystal Antlers, London Koko

Crystal Antlers

August 24 2009

Monday’s show at Koko saw three American bands, all at various, early stages of their careers, coming together for a special one-off show. Deerhunter’s last two records are strong, flowing ‘albums’ in the old-fashioned sense of the word, and these well-paced, detailed recordings stand in stark contrast to their tendency to fall into the odd controversy every now and again. HEALTH, meanwhile, have been toeing the line between noise and dance for a couple of years now, and often produce something that sounds like neither of those thins rather than a combination of the two. Before all that though, come Crystal Antlers. No strangers to a bit of hype themselves, the band have made numerous trips over to the UK this year in support of their debut album, Tentacles. I caught their headline show at The Lexington a few months back and the six-piece seemed a little contained, both by the small stage and the venue’s sound system. However, in the bigger, ornate setting of Koko, they shine.

Backed by a huge screen that showed projections throughout the show (at one point during the set the band actually soundtrack a film of the Hindenburg disaster, which seemed oddly fitting), Crystal Antlers tore through an intense set, barely letting up and winning over a fair few of the early gig-goers. Prominent in the mix was Cora Foxx’s organ, which meant that the band sounded like White Light/White Heat era The Velvet Underground abducted from New York and dropped in California’s sun scorched landscape. Vocalist Jonny Bell led from the front, his lone voice riding the noise effectively and with undeniable power.

HEALTH followed, with the venue noticeably filling up – their first record was something of a sleeper hit, helped along by their remix record DISCO, and many people have high hopes for their forthcoming second album, Get Color. They played its lead single, ‘Die Slow’, early on, which remains their most successful attempt at blending the noise, shoegaze and dance genres together – in fact it was probably the highlight of the evening.

The band played with unrelenting energy, flinging themselves around the stage – swinging guitars, wielding drum sticks, wrestling robotic noises from pedals. The set swung from passages of seemingly formless noise to sudden burst of melody, and back again. It wasn’t always easy to listen to, but you get the impression that with another album under their belt they’ll continue to make strides and build on what is already an impressive fanbase for such an experimental outfit.

Finally came the much-anticipated headline set from Deerhunter, opening with Cryptograms’ ‘Intro’ and title track. On record, this is as a ferocious start to an album as you’re likely to hear, but this wasn’t the case here – rather than building on the opening bands’ energy, they sounded a little tired. It wasn’t until ‘Nothing Ever Happened’, a few songs later, that things began to pick up, and even then they squandered some of their momentum by extending the song’s outro.

Some tracks, however, benefited from this kind of approach – an extended ambient intro set the tone for the poignant title track from last year’s Microcastle, for instance. Weird Era Cont.’s ‘Operation’ was another highlight, its shifting tempo and odd structure bringing the band to life. The encore summed the evening up – with the band returning, ready to leap into Microcastle’s opening duo of ‘Cover Me (Slowly)’ and ‘Agoraphobia’, bassist Josh Fauver’s guitar broke, leaving frontman Bradford Cox to add lib with the crowd for five minutes.

This was a shame – Deerhunter’s last two records are noisy, at times poignant, ruminations on mortality and sexuality, but the band clearly weren’t firing on all cylinders here – a quick visit to youtube confirms that they’re capable of crafting a weirdly intense live experience. While for most bands a mixed set like this might be excusable, the knowledge that Deerhunter are capable of much more means that this was a little bit of a disappointing climax to what was largely a pretty special evening.