A thirty minute spell on the receiving end of a grunge-flavoured battering is not everyone’s cup of Horlicks, so Bronto Skylift will continue to prove a divisive proposition for those that like their beverages soothing and their tunes more so. For the rest of those in attendance, the duo’s free-spirited assault on nuance is a solid portent to an evening that is never left wanting for energy and sweat soaked endeavour. If Bronto Skylift’s weapon of choice happens to be an opiate-tipped truncheon, Super Adventure Club’s convulsing riffs and erudite songwriting represents, necessarily, a more sophisticated instrument. Nevertheless, they’re merely on opposing sides of the same spectrum. The Edinburgh trio dish out a far more articulate brand of brutality—cued spectacularly by Bronto Skylift’s Niall Strachan, whose deadpan explanation of a song pertaining to “a famous Hollywood actor fiddling a kid” elicits an awkward 'WTF' moment—that fetishises intricacy, occasionally to the point where their song structures, oddly enough, become opaque and a bit detached emotively.
Leave it to Japandroids, then, to not so much wear their hearts on their sleeves as thrust them in your face dripping and fluttering. The Canadian duo begin their set as they do on Post-Nothing with ‘The Boys Are Leaving Town’, one of many songs that are well-received within Sneaky Pete’s narrow flyer-coated walls. At this point, brutality is no longer the byword, dissipating in favour of retrograde teenage angst encased in a rattling garage rock shell. There’s a refreshing absence of po-faced posturing throughout the evening, made all the more apparent by a pair of ear-to-ear grins beaming from Brian King and David Prowse, both of whom look deliriously happy to be here. Prowse's drumming is an effervescent, frantic blur that has a faintly synaesthetic quality, reaching its furious peak at 'Heart Sweats'. At the risk of reading too much into the portmanteau, Japandroids are anything but robotic in their affectations. Hand on heart, these guys take some beating.
4/5
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