229 THE VENUE, LONDON
A band with deep roots in London’s underground scene, tonight’s headliners have forged a clear community around them as the 229 hosts some of the city’s most intrepid bands and a sold-out crowd, making tonight an intimate, attentive act of celebration. TORPOR set the nocturnal tone, their cavernous, doom-laden trudge taking on an ever-expanding, ritualistic air as bristling grooves are swathed in luminous, baleful atmospheres like wraiths swirling around your pineal gland. It’s an unnerving state of delirium that FIVE THE HIEROPHANT take a parallel, instrumental route to. Their cowled, barefooted frontman writhes over an alto sax as the band’s mantric momentum buffets Middle Eastern melodies and tracks build up towards a state of critical mass that, even if they’re not fully reached, still make for the most scenic of journeys. When it comes to carving out sonic space, however, GRAVE LINES are untouchable. Doom might be the starting point, but their subterranean detours are an immersive fever dream. Tonight they’re launching their new album, Communion, and it gives frontman Jake Harding new scope to explore his range, from longincarcerated howls to rich sonorous laments reminiscent of Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry. If Grave Lines sound like an ongoing, hallucinatory journey, tonight suggests they’ve fully arrived.