Scarlet Joy are making a comeback to the UK circuit after a hiatus and they are VERY back.
The songs built and built, each one mesmerising with a sort of Lush meets L7 and has a baby called Throwing Muses who is diagnosed with weaponised ADHD at 7 months. You sort of watch with that pleasantly surprised, arrested, incredulous face you get at a gig when the opening band is bloody amazing, and you weren’t really ready to accommodate that.
Fronted by songster Sophia, the trio blast out their stripped down mood music having nailed the art of uncomplex riffs and structure and being way more than a sum of their parts- they don’t sound like Galaxie 500, but that vibe.
An emotional trombone full of moody Unicorns. Sophia seemed to barely touch her guitar neck but was blasting out awesome songs about male patriarchy and loss with all the climate of the Cure at their best.
Essential soundtracks to this world.
Great name, LA85- in four characters they set out their aspirational landscape of mid eighties rrrrrock, with all the hopes fears and dreams of the sunset strip. The “moderate” band of the line up, strangely this didn’t diminish from their vibe or performance. You have to be really good to hold your own against Van Halen, Guns N Roses and not being heavy heavy- and they are really good.
Frontman Pat has lungs and is ambitious in tackling the songs, and the rest are a solid and dependable crew who have written some stonkers. Speaking to them, I was impressed at how they are so intentional. Songs don’t have just to be good, but hold that branding of all that LA85 means, so no whimsical trips into personal music tastes or hijacking the whole thing through ego. They are serious.
Their finale was a new one and it heralds a band moving into a new gear and new confidence. Luckily for us, they are spending much of the rest of year writing new material so expect any autumn/ winter gigs to be a band strutting in their prime.
Never have I seen a band that look so much like a band. Their female bassist even has leather bell bottomed trousers. Beat that.
Having their lead guitarist living in Cornwall, and the rest of them the Lincs hinterland, this band have chosen to have the furthest distance possible between each other, but ironically this isn’t reflected in their stage show -which is possibly one of the tightest I’ve ever seen. No wonder bikers like them. There is no better soundtrack available to pile your Harley into the pillars of Forton services at 150mph.
They all have the bonus of all being impossibly good looking, humble and friendly. You can see the interview on the BOBI podcast but suffice to say this band look, sound and act the part that beckons being large venue viable. You heard about them on BOBI first.
They are named after a demon dog that heralds doom if you see it- a bit like our current energy bills. Their brand of edgy yet commercial whiskey rock blends Quo at their most extreme with moderate Metallica and expert songwriting that knows all about stop start, immense solos, riffage that would make AC/DC blush, and the facial expressions on stage that only rock and metal bands are allowed to do and get away with.
They drove off into the night to Cornwall, where they are going to write their new set in some haunted tin mine or something. That’s what real bands do.
The Black Shucks have mastered the tricky skill set of nodding to the glorious heyday of 1970s British rock without sounding nostalgic or plagiaristic, and embracing modern trends in rock without being bandwagonesque. They are their own entity. A must see.
[Photos by Liz Martin]
[Review by Simon Barnabas]
