10th March 2013<\/p>\n
Apollo<\/p>\n
8\/10<\/p>\n
Seeing paramedics at a gig is an oft-worrying sight, respirators and other medical apparatus are not items you\u2019d assume in a live setting, but at a My Bloody Valentine show the cataclysmic volume ensures it\u2019s pretty much a given. From the moment the band launches into ‘I Only Said’, the audience is witness to a total sensory overload. Swirling melodies make the heart swoon; columns of distortion raze everything before them and jackhammer drums lock the crowd into an incessant clockwork groove. For four unassuming people to make music both frightening and gorgeous, and deliver it without compromise is a delight to witness.<\/p>\n
The band pulls from an arsenal spanning two decades, but their attack is so ferocious that the oldest material sits comfortably alongside the revered Loveless<\/i> and choice cuts from new record m b v<\/i>. Tracks like ‘Come in Alone’ and ‘Soon’ are the pillows above the bed of nails of ‘Thorn’ and ‘Only Shallow’, but one thing is clear, volume is very much the order of the day. The venue is almost levelled by ‘You Made Me Realise’; when the band launch into the \u2018Holocaust Section\u2019, it’s met with an almost knowing cheer from parts of the audience. If you think that name is tactless, it\u2019s not without reason. A single chord builds into a cyclical, apocalyptic sheet of distortion, the volume steadily rising to almost unbearable but oddly captivating levels for a ten minute duration. It\u2019s here the paramedics\u2019 presence is truly noticeable, and a rush of people moving from the front proves MBV\u2019s unfettered noise is not for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n
The set isn\u2019t wholly perfect. At times, Bilinda Butcher\u2019s vocals sound like off-key caterwauling rather than sweetly serene lullabies, and it takes the band three attempts before they fully pull off ‘Feed Me with Your Kiss’. That said, these complaints are nothing when compared to the set of monolithic, utterly invincible noise the crowd has just experienced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finally armed with new material to play, the Irish noise-mongers are as uncompromising as ever<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1020,121,21,5631,1916],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9230"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}