THE HOWLERS + CLOUD + ROOM SERVICE – THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON 8.9.22
London based garage rockers The Howlers (who prefer the term “desert rockers”) made a welcome return this evening to Brighton as part of their select 8-date UK tour, which has already seen them thrilling crowds in Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol. Next month they will also be playing live in Brixton.
Clearly, here is a band that are moving in the right direction and are ‘Further Down The Line’ as their previous Brighton concert was 278 days ago at the very compact Rossi Bar on Queens Road. Tonight, (courtesy of concert promoters Love Thy Neighbour) they move a handful of doors up nearer to Brighton station, as they take over the much larger The Hope & Ruin for the night.
The Howlers migrated to the capital from Plymouth, Portsmouth and the Netherlands and are now well and truly “East London Cowboys”. The band consists of Adam Young, Guus Ter Braak and Tom Triggs and they have quickly identified themselves as one of the UK’s must-see live acts. Gaining praise from radio royalty including KEXP’s Cheryl Waters, RadioX’s John Kennedy and Radio1’s Jack Saunders, for their ferocious debut single ‘La Dolce Vita’, its equally energetic follow up ‘Matador’ also pricked the ears of music supervisors, who selected the track for coverage on BTSport, SkySports, SoccerAm and more.
They returned in April 2020 with their warped third single, ‘Badlands’ which is a ferocious and brooding statement about standing strong for what you believe in no matter the consequences. Doffing their caps to the genius of Dick Dale and Ennio Morricone, The Howlers consume and digest influences from surf and garage rock before spitting them back out with a confident snarl. Calling out like a battle cry over growling bass and primal beats, the chorus hook, “Now I fear the end has come, stand and fight don’t try to run” is a euphoric call to arms. Set against Spaghetti Western-inspired guitar lines, ‘Badlands’ is an aptly foreboding slice of doomy indie-rock with the potential to cause a mosh pit in seconds.
March 2021 saw the band unveil their video for their ‘I Don’t Love You All The Time’ single – watch it HERE and stream/purchase it HERE. Hot on its heels was ‘Lost Without You’, both of which turned up on their August 2021 four track ‘The Sum Of Our Fears’ EP.
The Howlers are now literally ‘Further Down The Line’ with the forthcoming release of a 4 track EP on 30th September. The tunes are ‘Nothing To Lose’, ‘Further Down The Line’, ‘The Boy I Was Before’ and ‘Autumn Leaves’. This is their latest work and in fact they released their new single ‘The Boy I Was Before’ yesterday, stating that “This track is about the innocence of growing up in a world that is stacked against you dreaming of more! the video featuring us as kids filmed by our families…”
Before we get to The Howlers performance this evening, we take in the delights of the supports artists, which I initially believed were to be Gobstoppers and Ideal Living, but on entry to the venue, I noted that it was now the tasks of both CLOUD and Room Service to entertain the keen punters this evening.
First up then are Room Service who state that they are a “Brighton formed band that includes 3 frenchies and one dude from Texas”. In fact there were six of them in total performing a 29 minute set for us this evening, which kicked off to a sparse room at 8:23pm. Was this due to the truly awful weather outside or were folks glued to their TV’s in order to view the reports of The Queen’s passing, or maybe they just don’t bother with support bands, which in the Brighton & Hove News Music Team to a crime! The hordes of ‘first up’ support artists that I have personally witnessed over the past 44 years of constant gigging that have gone on to much bigger and better things is truly unreal.
Tonight is Room Service’s seventh or eighth live performance. Their debut outing (which sold out) was on 25th April at The Folklore Rooms. This is our first encounter with this outfit that got it together in May 2021. They are a versatile lot, as there was a fair amount of instrument swapping to be had throughout their set. As far as I can recall (and I stand to be corrected here), for the majority, Helena was on lead vocal and some bass duty (with a little drums thrown in….not at the same time!), ‘Texan’ Devin was on drums and (decent) vocals, stand-in Melvin was on Korg keys and bass, with the trio of other lads (Thomas, Nez and Zach) taking care of the Squier Jaguar and two Fender guitars.
Thus with a trio of guitars on the go, it’s not surprising that the sextet gave us jangly soulful funky guitar indie pop tracks. They released their debut single ‘Wasteland’ on 1st October 2021 and that’s the number they begin with this evening.
Tonight they were trying out a new set and judging by the slowly increasing audience during the set, the punters’ response after each number was increasing with appreciation, it was all working out rather well for this new act.
Their second single (and penultimate number tonight) was launched on 6th May this year in the form of the glam rock tinged ‘JCVD’, which is their homage to Jean-Claude Van Damme and for me was the pick of the half-dozen compositions on offer this evening. Although tonight’s live version was enthusiastically expanded in the middle by vocalist/drummer Devin who ventured a little off-piste, which I personally didn’t necessarily was required. These are a good time band and were a promising start to the evening. They finished at 8:52pm and the happy crowd dispersed to the bar for the 18 minute duration in between acts.
Room Service are:
Helena Marchand – vocals/bass
Devin Curry – drums/vocals
Thomas Conrad – guitar
Nez Garcia – guitar/bv’s
Zach Wright – guitar/keys/bass
Pierre Connan – bass/keys (but tonight is covered by Melvin Vernet)
Room Service setlist:
‘Wasteland’
‘So Long’
‘Cosmos’
‘When The Lights Go Out’
‘JCVD’
‘Tiffany Applegate’
We all reconvened at 9:10pm to experience some time (29 minutes to be exact) with Brighton based 5-piece psychedelic rock act CLOUD, who have been on the case since least the beginning of last year and describe themselves as “The sonic equivalent of a butterfly dogfight”.
Some may say that starting a band just as Covid is messing up the world, might not be the ideal start, but it has certainly helped Tom, Dan, Tolly, Alex and Charlie get on the case with their outfit CLOUD. Whether it has been jamming remotely, or live streaming performances, it has helped the guys practise and learn their craft. By 3rd July last year, they were ready for their debut headline gig, which took place at The Rossi Bar, which is literally a few doors down from where they are performing tonight. Sold out gigs followed at The Brunswick, as well as appearing at the Green Door Store, The Hope & Ruin and a couple of London dates.
The 17th September 2021 saw the guys offload their debut single release ‘When Reapers Attack’ via Pool Valley Music, which was hotly pursued on 15th October by second single ‘The Prophecy’. The lads were on a roll and their debut album ‘The Fourth Planet’ was released on the 12th November.
I was informed by drummer ‘Tolly’ (aka Tom Tollyfield) that CLOUD have not had a live concert review published before. Well my young friend, that’s all about to change………..
It has been said that CLOUD “are a Brighton-based Psychedelic Rock Quintet, inspired by the Australian dominated scene, taking influences from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Pink Floyd to create mind-warping and narrative-driven music. This five piece collectively conjure up a ray of Cosmic Rock’n’roll, displaying the dream sequence-style stories of their songs through an altered lens”.
So what can we add to the correct information stated above? For starters, guitarist Charlie wasn’t available this evening, so they were a stripped down quartet, but stripped down certainly doesn’t enter into it tonight, as it’s a full on aural assault. As well as obviously Tolly sitting behind the kit, there was Alex taking care of the Yamaha keys with Behringer Poly-D keys and bv’s, Dan was sporting his Fender Mustang bass and vocalist Tom was taking care of his Squier guitar.
They begin their eight song set with an instrumental ‘Intro’ which then gives way for ‘Circles’. ‘Magic Carpet Escape’ and ‘The Prophecy’ follow. These two are culled from the debut album. CLOUD often go for the dual vocal approach and they remind me of The Horrors, but an almost hippy trippy late 60s early 70s vibe with a nod to the likes of Radiohead as well. Although having said that, new number ‘Whales’ (which was played next) did sound rather like The Smiths and Morrissey on the vocal front courtesy of Alex.
Although the room still was not at maximum capacity, it seemed that those present were getting behind this outfit just as much as for Room Service. They concluded their performance with a trio from their album, ‘When Reapers Attack’, (title track) ‘The Fourth Planet’ and sensibly ending with ‘Epilogue’ that served as a conclusion to what has happened. Let’s call them a tight unit who operate in the realms modern 21st century prog – magic mushrooms not required! They vacated the stage at 9:39pm to the applause they deserved!
Cloud are:
Tom Collins – guitar/lead vocals
Dan Norman – bass
‘Tolly’ (Tom Tollyfield) – drums
Alex Rabbitte – synth and keyboards
Charlie Atkinson – guitar (but not tonight)
Cloud setlist:
‘Intro’
‘Circles’
‘Magic Carpet Escape’
‘The Prophecy’
‘Whales’
‘When Reapers Attack’
‘The Fourth Planet’
‘Epilogue’
An interlude of 24 minutes was sufficient in order to get the drinks in. The room, as you would expect, was now packed, but not quite full capacity. The Howlers grace the raised stage at 10:03pm and we are whisked away on a journey with them for the next all-to-short 44 minutes, until they have had enough at 10:47pm. Wot! 13 minutes still to go until curfew! You can certainly get two more tunes in that time!
The Howlers format is Adam Young on lead vocals, guitar (complete with a whole host of foot-pedals) and occasional tambourine, Guus Ter Braak on bass guitar and Tom Triggs on drums and occasional drum pads (which incidentally I wished that their compositions lead to the increased use of).
They open with ‘The Boy I Was Before’ which will be found on the forthcoming 2022 ‘Further Down The Line’ EP, which is due to drop on 30th September. For those wondering what it’s like, the vibes I got were Marc Bolan/T.Rex tinged vocals and even on the beat. Adam then informed the room that The Queen had passed away for those that didn’t yet know. Interestingly enough, I had earlier failed to mention that during the support artists’ set, someone from the crowd had played a crown on top of one of the floor standing speakers in front of the band.
Next up was the first of six as yet (to my knowledge) unreleased tunes, in the form of ‘On The Run’, which was a more rockier number than its predecessor. The next two cutz can be found on their ‘The Sum Of Our Fears’ EP from last year, the first of these being ‘I Don’t Love You All The Time’, with its swinging twangy guitar sound and Arctic Monkeys style vocal delivery – this was the best so far and a highlight of their eleven song set. The second was ‘Lost Without You’, which was followed by ‘Further Down The Line’, the title track from the forthcoming EP. This again had a familiar vocal delivery, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After the performance I quizzed frontman Adam about this and he informed me that they get this quite a lot and that the name Jake Bugg comes up frequently, or at least that’s what I thought he said as the soundsystem was still banging out the tunes and folks were talking around me.
The Howlers are a tight outfit, who were trying out a host of as yet unreleased material, in fact the next four tracks all fell into this category. The Bolan and Arctic Monkeys vibe continued right through these compositions, but the more recent tunes have lost that Ennio Morricone Spaghetti-Western vibe in favour of a more contemporary sound. My choice of these four new cuts would certainly be ‘When The Flowers Bloom Again’, which was arguably their best number. Mind you the following track ‘Gotta Go’ was good too.
Two more tunes came and went and an encore was requested and sadly denied. They were done at 10:47pm. Here is an outfit that is surely expected to be headlining festival main stages in the next few years.
The Howlers are:
Adam Young – guitar/vocals
Guus Ter Braak – bass
Tom Triggs – drums
The Howlers setlist:
‘The Boy I Was Before’ (from forthcoming 2022 ‘Further Down The Line’ EP)
‘On The Run’ (unreleased?)
‘I Don’t Love You All The Time’ (from 2021 ‘The Sum Of Our Fears’ EP)
‘Lost Without You’ (from 2021 ‘The Sum Of Our Fears’ EP)
‘Further Down The Line’ (from forthcoming 2022 ‘Further Down The Line’ EP)
‘Once Again’ (unreleased?)
‘Standing On The Corner’ (unreleased?)
‘When The Flowers Bloom Again’ (unreleased?)
‘Gotta Go’ (unreleased?)
‘Nothing To Lose’ (from forthcoming 2022 ‘Further Down The Line’ EP)
‘El Dorado’ (unreleased?)
You can read our 2021 Brighton concert review of The Howlers concert HERE.
Check out The Howlers Bandcamp page HERE and visit their official website www.thehowlers.co.uk.