Live: Eagulls

‘Tough Luck’—the title of Eagulls’s opening track might be the best description for the attitude of Leeds’ finest post-punk band. The jangling, Marr-esque guitar intro heavily contrasting the barely comprehensible wail of vocalist George Mitchell. A man with the pale gaunt of Ian Curtis.

As the set progresses and the guitar gets heavier: the individual sound that make Eagulls who they are. With each song there is a sense of complete hopelessness in the realisation that you’re completely fucked; they are the sound of the disgruntled English worker in 2014. This might not seem the kind of doom and gloom that will liven your spirits on a rainy Saturday in Manchester, but there’s something in the comradery of the audience. A communal acceptance that everything’s gone shit and there’s nothing we can do about it and that’s just fine.

Marching through the set with a constant swagger, the band launch into 2013 single ‘Nerve Endings’, arguably the song that named them BBC Radio 6’s Steve Lamacq’s favourite band of that year. A sentiment shared by many in the crowd, moving furiously as Mitchell spits out each lyric over the droning music. The band, dressed all in black, dimly lit by a projection of a bleak cityscape have a bleak gothic look that feeds an energy possessing the eager crowd.

As the set draws to a close, their agitated nature erupts into an energetic rage taking on the persona of the final song ‘Possessed’. Leaving with no goodbyes and no encore Eagulls defy convention and courtesy, but you wouldn’t expect anything else from this band. A cold and emotionless end to their largest UK tour to date. No sentiment. Just the bleak message of a band that by rights should only get bigger.