Bitter Ruin / Thomas Truax / Dan Griffis

The venue for tonight's show, Proud, in Camden, London seems to be more spruced up every time I visit. A converted horse hospital where the stables are used as partitioned areas for punters to sit and chat, the cobbled stone floor in the main space has been boarded over and an extra bar has appeared in the corner. It has comfy seats towards the back of the venue but you have to arrive early to nab them.

The show has drawn an attentive, appreciative crowd, which reflects well on the main band and so both support acts are listened to respectfully. First up is Dan Griffis, one man and his acoustic guitar, who looks like James Dean Bradfield of the Manics, and sings some gentle songs with bluesy folk vocals in a similar style to Devendra Banhart and both Buckleys, interspersed with effective a cappella parts.

Next is one of my favourite musicians, Thomas Truax, who I've reviewed a couple of times before so will just summarise – he's been adopted by the Steampunk and Victoriana genre, has a gothic look, mixed with performance art, a mechanical backing band of hand-built instruments (the Hornicator, Mother Superior, the Backbeater and a malfunctioning Stringaling all feature this evening), and madcap tales of Wowtown and other deranged dream realms. The bewilderment on people's faces when Mr Truax starts playing can turn to bemusement, or amusement and rapt attention like tonight. Truax introduces us to his ambitious project of writing, recording and releasing one song per month for this year and plays us 'February What Ya Doin To Me', as well as 'March Winds'. Other highlights are an unplugged 'Full Moon Over Wowtown', a couple of songs from 'Lost Highway' which are on Truax's 'Songs from the Films of David Lynch', and the haunting tale of 'The Butterfly and the Entomologist' played using spinning neon-lit headgear against the guitar strings.



I first saw the main act Bitter Ruin supporting Amanda Palmer and Evelyn Evelyn last year – they'd blagged their way on to the tour when the scheduled support couldn't make it – and then supporting Brian Viglione, the other half of the Dresden Dolls, a couple of weeks ago. The most exciting support band I'd seen in ages, they are headlining tonight at Proud. Based in Brighton, they seem to be building up a loyal following in London, with a noticeable Gothic-looking contingent in the audience - I guess the band fit into the Steampunk genre too due to their vintage-style outfits and twisted darkness in their lyrics.

Bitter Ruin is an acoustic male-female duo - Ben Richards and Georgia Train. Both sing, and have incredible voices, and Richards plays guitar in a Spanish-style, which is almost fast flamenco at times. Added percussion comes from frantic handclaps and some foot-stomping; they can make a lot of noise for a two-piece acoustic act. Train's voice can go from soft and delicate to screaming, scornful banshee within a song. Most of the vocals could be described as duelling rather than duetting as there's bitterness and bickering, recrimination and revenge, death and decay, even violence in the lyrics and a lot of vocal overlapping and sparring. Both artists put masses of passion and performance into each song, enhancing the words with dramatic expressions and gestures, watching each other constantly and acting out the dramas within each track.



Tonight the dark duo showcase some new songs for their forthcoming album and request that no footage of these go on YouTube, as the gig is meant to be an 'exclusive'. A new video is also shown, which was filmed two weeks ago (mostly in Train's shower by the looks of it!), to accompany a beautiful song 'A Brand New Me'. All the songs in the set are unique and each a story in themselves, highlights for me are the aggressive 'Trust' ("I know those pills are aspirins for your head … if they weren't, bitch, you'd be dead"), 'The Vice' and their Wild West showdown song 'Relief', which they sing for the encore.

It is difficult to believe that Bitter Ruin is still unsigned and that the fourth release will be out soon; having seen them live a few times now and bought all their CDs, I can guarantee that they are intense, compelling and addictive and would most definitely be on my 'ones to watch' list.

FUTURE GIGS

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