Joanna Gruesome were always a band split in two, a band that could pull off straight, softly-sung, melodic indie-pop half the time and screamed, riotous, punk the other half, nearly always switching between the two mid-song.
They’re a band with two faces, one Belle and Sebastian, Veronica Falls, Teenage Fanclub, the other Sleater-Kinney, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hole.
And the band now has two faces for these roles, with Kate Gruesome and Roxy Gruesome taking on the roles of performing Alanna McArdle’s sung lyrics and her shouted lyrics respectively, after the former singer left last year.
Tonight at Stereo, Kate Gruesome takes the role of the begrudging bandleader, putting across an appearance of disorder on stage: “we don’t have a setlist”, she tells the audience at the start, before asking the rest of the band to “not play it too fast” before another.
But this is a facade, and the band is an impressively tight unit, moving, playing, switching styles in cohesion.
The band doesn’t exude confidence, the six members looking down or facing inwards, but this plays nicely against the band’s large sound.
Breakfast Muff’s Eilidh McMillan is standing in for Roxy Gruesome, but she does an admirable job, facing away from the audience, dancing emphatically.
The songs do a lot with as little as they need, nearly all of them clocking in at the two-minute mark; ‘Jerome’ has the start of an epic coda, with an “oh yeah” that then is done after about a second.
Songs like ‘I Don’t Wanna Relax’ and ‘Hey! I Wanna be Yr Best Friend’ are centred around fleeting, but grand solos from George Gruesome.
It’s these twists and turns that make Joanna Gruesome a vital, necessary band today.
Words: Tony Boardman
