Gillingham, Kent, UK (By Mikey) -
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club operate under such a richly seeded, creatively productive cloud that they might want to consider a sideline in umbrella sales. They'd make a killing.
There's no denying that moodiness is essential to their being, but it's not just the unrelieved darkness of their clothing, the 'Black' of their name or their (now notorious) mardy recalcitrance in interviews. Sure, it's ironic that the Anglo-American trio formed in California, as a less sunnily-dispositioned band it's hard to imagine, but the bedrock of BRMC's broodiness is their music and, on stage, its exudation as a kind of sexy, all-pervading vapour transcends any tiresome truculence.
Happily, it also seems to be slowly transcending the band's more obvious influences. The spirits of The Jesus And Mary Chain, Spacemen 3 and Suicide are not quite as peskily ever-present as before and if - having effortlessly snatched our knickers off with the full-tilt snarl of their debut, 'Punk Song', then wood us with their first album - BRMC's challenge now is to prove they're capable of long-term commitment, then tonight sees them down on metaphorical bended knee.
Half the set is drawn from their forthcoming sophomore LP and, two songs in, the new 'Six Barrel Shotgun' shows BRMC equally as in love with Motorhead's blasted-from-a-cannon dynamism as with the coolly propulsive gloom that is their stock-in-trade. True, there are hints of a remodelled 'Punk Song' here, but bizarrely, also of the careering power of 'Ace Of Spades'.
The set unfolds with the provocative 'US Government' and a lean and lowering 'Red Eyes And Tears' - surely the most perfect demonstration to date of the band's distinctive, saw-tooth riffage - then on through the dreamily drugged 'Stop' to newie 'Shade Of Blue', which begins with a distinctly Cure-like guitar coda, before coiling lazily around Robert Turner's vocals. They slam to a stop with 'Punk Song', which is both lament and rallying cry, then pad back on through the cheers and wafts of dry ice for 'We're All In Love', which spikes a dose of hammering, glam-era Bowie with 'Brown Sugar', then adds the off-kilter, kaleidoscopic harmonies of The Beatles, via Velvet Underground.
"I'm in love with something that I can't see," Turner howls at one point.
We all are, my friend. It's called rock 'n' roll and although you can't see it, your feel for it is just fine.
