Over the past month, the 4-piece art rock band, These New Puritans, have been subject to nothing but praise and huge admiration from all sectors of the music media, with regards to their new album, 'Hidden', released only last month.
The first time I saw These New Puritans live was back in 2007, on a tour with Crystal Castles and The Teenagers, and at the time, the band offered a very electronic edge to their post punk sound, combining the two together, to fantastic results.
Their debut album, 'Beat Pyramid', was released two years ago, received hugely deserved praise, but from only a small minority. However, times have changed for the band, and their latest offering is quite simply a musical master class.
The first single taken from the album, 'We Want War', was far more experimental than anything the band had ever done previously, introducing a much more experimental edge to their original sound, with fantastic results.
Tonight, the band brought their new album back to Newcastle, to play at the city's major alternative club night, Jukebox, in a venue, fitting for such a band. Dark, intimate, and with a sound system capable of achieving a great sound for the band's music, and the results were fantastic.
The near sell out show, saw the band heavily concentrate on their latest album, dipping into their debut album, to bring into their set the songs that set up the band to what they've become now.
Opening with 'We Want War', the band started as they intended to go on, really creating a party atmosphere, whilst still maintaining their new experimental sound, not letting the club show occasion let them stay away from something a little more 'difficult' to take in.
Pushing on through their set, debuting tracks such as 'Attack Music' and 'Fire Power' to the Newcastle audience, both of which took much more of step back to their debut album, and worked well in a set which combined the band?s popular songs 'Colours', 'Swords of Truth', and their biggest hit, 'Elvis', which even today, is still a fantastic song that I'll never get bored of hearing.
'Elvis', gaining the biggest cheer of the night, and really leaving the audience in the mood to continue the partying until the very early hours, the band the followed 'Elvis' with two, much more experimental and slower paced tracks from 'Hidden', which unfortunately left a sour taste on a fantastic performance.
With the band playing in a club setting ending on a higher paced, more recognisable song such as 'Elvis' would've made the set nothing short of excellent, however, this decision let them down, taking time for the atmosphere to be built up again.
This isn't to take away from how excellent the band's music is, it's simply mind blowing how different, and refreshing it is, and live they're very talented, however, some more judgement on song selection is needed.
article by: Anthony Hetherington
published: 10/02/2010 17:27
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.