Live: Outfit

7th October

Gulliver’s

8/10

When a band introduce their set with, “we’re going to be playing mainly new songs”, it can mean either one of two things; they’re using this audience as guinea pigs for a trial run of half completed numbers, or, they’re so confident with their new tracks, they’ll play them even if it’s not what the audience wants to hear. Clearly Outfit are of the latter seam, and in spite of the risk, they pull it off with extreme professionalism.

Based around the focal point of singer and keyboardist Andrew Hunt, the band patiently respond to his progressive piano chords that slowly saunter around the minor key. With the looping of basic guitar riffs and the swooping of cymbals sliding in and out of earshot, Outfit maximise on the bare minimum. It is because of this reliance on sudden quietness, that it’s hard to tell when one song ends and the next begins. The interludes and pauses play into the ambience just as much as the multi-layered instrumentation of sounds like Lightsabers, Gameboys and reverberations of impending doom. Outfit thrive off the reduction of noise, down to the simple repetition of three chords on piano. Yet Outfit are anything but simple. It’s a phrase thrown about often to any guitar band that takes on electronics, but much of Outfit really does sound like Radiohead, particularly in their intellectual arrangements and attention to minute detail.

Although the downbeat pop vibe that encapsulates the room is heavily weighed down by the melancholy minor key, older tracks such as ‘Elephant Days’, are more coherent with a strong upbeat chorus that grounds the song where others disappear out of recognition. It’s the final song that captures what Outfit are about, with each musical part easily identifiable as an individual sound, whilst working in exact equilibrium to flatter each other. Despite the complex construction of every song, Outfit depend on the individual contribution, and as true perfectionists, don’t allow even the finest of details to slip.