Support tonight comes from solid new Glasgow indie trio Tweaking, followed by a set from TIGERCUB, which makes the lethargic Sunday night audience sit up and listen.
TIGERCUB are a Brighton band with a certain mischief about their slacker-rock aesthetic, not unlike Slaves.
They dedicate ‘Rich Man’ to David Cameron and repeatedly big up their tour friends Dilly Dally.
‘Pictures of You’, also from EP Repressed Semantics, is all eerie chords followed by pounding riffs.
Dilly Dally roll onto the stage with the swagger of cool kids showing up late to a house party.
Debut album Sore has attracted attention for its raw and intense punk sound, for distorted riffs and Katie Monks’ earth-shattering voice.
She sings like she is undergoing exorcism; her eyes roll back into her head as she screams and drawls in turn, her hands gesturing and flicking around her mic when they are not thrashing out rhythm guitar.
A recently recorded cover of fellow Torontonian Drake’s ‘Know Yourself’ is brilliant, making “running through the six with my woes” sound like a nightmarish activity.
‘Green’ is an irresistible grunge love song with the opening declaration, “I want you, I want you/naked in my kitchen, making me breakfast”.
The pace of Dilly Dally’s music feels like a battle between deliberate slowness and an urgent, angry rush of noise, heard in Liz Ball’s lead guitar on ‘Purple Rage’ and ‘Ballin’ Chain’.
They save single ‘Desire’ until the end, with Monks never letting up the energy of her war cry even when the mic stand fails and a guitar string breaks.
‘Desire’ is the sound of a painful feminine desire that can’t be absolved by rejection or reciprocity, but can only be hammered out of mind through the whispered verses and aggressive choruses of a song that leaves your ears ringing with feedback.
This band will get under your skin.
Words: Ellen MacAskill
