What a difference a week makes. Having had its concrete baked due to a recent impromptu heat wave, Manchester’s back to its usual soggy self just in time to welcome London indie-pop outfit Gengahr – only seven days since Hinds’ tempted us with a slither of precious summer. Still, the resilient nature of the city’s music fans is admirable. Not even a constant curtain of drizzle is going to stop them from visiting Gorilla to indulge in a heady dose of dream pop. The fact that it also gets them out of this evening’s terrible weather? Well, that’s just an added bonus.
These Southern indie kids are in town tonight to give their long-awaited new record Where Wildness Grows a proper introduction to Northern audiences. Having hit shelves a mere three months ago, their hotly-tipped follow up to 2015’s bright and breezy A Dream Outside has only had a few weeks to really make an impact on listeners. However thanks to the raw listenability of their breakthrough record – with its earworm tracks “She’s A Witch”, “Heroine”, and well, pretty much everything else on the album – anticipation for their new work was high.
Thankfully it delivered. Frontman Felix Bushe’s falsetto vocals – combined with a slightly harder, more dedicated pop-shaped backing sound from bandmates John Victor, Hugh Schulte and Danny Ward – signalled a more mature and perhaps more mainstream sound for Gengahr. As the two records are thrown together on stage tonight in Manchester, the thought that this is a band on the cusp of something bigger isn’t far from anyone’s mind.
The wispy guitars boasted on new cut “Before Sunrise”, mixed with Busche’s airy vocal range, take the band into a territory reminiscent of jaunty Bombay Bicycle Club. Undeniably a slight departure from that shoegaze sound they very much made their own with A Dream Outside but one that reassuringly fits perfectly when placed alongside older tracks on a live setlist. The band’s slight psychedelic slant also survives, emerging in the guitar wails of new one “Is This How You Love” and giving their live performance a slightly harder edge to what Gengarh fans might ordinarily be use to. Hypnotic single “She’s A Witch” may remain tonight’s stand out moment but you’d be silly to assume that’s all this Stoke quartet have hiding up their sleeves come festival season.
Words by Simon Bland (@SiTweetsToo).
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