White Rose Movement

White Rose Movement look anxious. Up until a few weeks ago, everything was rosy. Last Summer’s anthemic ‘Love Is A Number’ eclipsed the sun and sweat like a fleet of tanks emerging from the horizon, adding razor-sharp style to disco nights out after long days running about amongst the grass in flip-flops.

From thereon up, things just got better and better. A triumphant set filling in for British Sea Power at Bestival was a minor epiphany, a phantasmagoria of debonair electroclash and a couple of hundred intoxicated party-goers in fancy dress making for a truly memorable experience, whilst news of the band settling down with Paul ‘I’ll make you famous’ Epworth to produce their debut album kept tongues wagging further.

Last month, on a high-profile support tour with The Rakes, everything seemed primed and ready to go. The upshot? With expectation set so high, it wasn’t going to be hard for things to go tits up. Sod’s law, they call it.

This week hasn’t bee particularly good for the band. Now that Smash Hits has shut down, NME has taken it upon itself to fill the mantle for trite teenage tabloid guff and White Rose Movement have fallen victim to the arbitrary taste-makers. Despite the text of the album review for the large part confirming its excellence (and it IS excellent), the mark given out of ten was curiously low. For the absent-minded youth at large, it’s that number out of ten which will decide whether or not the band are worth investing time and money into. Anything below an eight usually means you can write off any further NME love-ins.

So there’s the media hypocrisy to get under their nails, then there’s the more direct problem – the lack of people in the venue. Why they’ve been booked to play Rescue Rooms (a venue which, this same week, is being headlined by The Futureheads and Bloc Party) before their album is even out can only be answered by the fact that all of the other venues in Nottingham must have already been taken, and as a result, what could easily have been a defining celebration of a band on the brink of success is undercut by the large empty spaces occupying most of the room, that sucks up the atmosphere like a big black hole.

But for every bad thing that happens, something good can be found, such is the nature of these binary opposites, so the fact White Rose Movement are playing to a half empty, indifferent venue in the week that the country’s biggest trend-setter has given them a kick in the shins brings to mind the old adage ‘what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.’

In the face of adversity the White Rose Movement put on a thrilling, unapologetic show. Half way through, after the Depeche Mode-esque thumper ‘Testcard Girl’, the empty space that dominated the start is filled by the outstretched limbs of people dancing. They’re free of the wacky porkpie hats and zany scissor kicks that are required for wide span appreciation at this moment in time, but each song is hook-laden and delightful – dark and brooding whilst instantly memorable and foot-moving.

Current single ‘Girls In The Back’ is purer pop than half the dirge that fills the charts at the moment (Chico Time, anyone?) and if only we were living in darker times for pop music (like 1983), White Rose Movement would truly soar. As it is, they’re being trampled on and it’s left to small timers like me to write their defences.

‘Love Is A Number’ rallies the biggest cheers and by the time ‘Alsatian’ has rung out under the foreboding majesty of epilepsy-inducing strobes, there is no doubt that this band are anything but truly excellent.

So, it’s been a bad week for the band, but with a performance this strong they shouldn’t feel sad for too long. If you’re reading this now and are yet to hear them – get on the download, get to the gigs. We’re living in a time where we’ve sold our opinions and tastes, and it’s time we reclaim control and give quality acts like White Rose Movement the attention they deserve so that they can continue to make innovative, exciting music for a long time coming.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.