Formed from the incestuous ashes of a bunch of 1990s Home Counties music scenes, tonight’s somewhat smaller than expected Brudenell gathering is unsurprisingly predominantly male, middle aged, with a cornucopia of band t-shirts on display for good measure.
Piroshka, are fronted by Miki Berenyi, whose original vehicle ‘Lush’ briefly reunited a couple of years ago following a lengthy hiatus. The origins of the new band moniker emanate from Hungary, the land of Berenyi’s father, given to their version of Little Red Riding Hood. The 2016 reunion seemed to have rekindled the creative juices of shoegaze’s original Chelsea Girl, enlisting the help of her other half, ‘Moose’ guitarist KJ ‘Moose’ McKillop together with former ‘Modern English’ bassist Mick Conroy and Justin Welch, ‘Elastica’ former tub thumper, completing the quartet.
Debut album ‘Brickbat’, released on Bella Union records could easily have fallen into the trap of reheated Britpop but I’m pleased to inform the collection of shimmering indie-pop nuggets makes for decent listening. The sound is very pop, decidedly urbane with it and most importantly, different enough from all the bands they’ve come from to prove interesting. Lyrically, the subject matter veers from politics to parenthood and interestingly, Piroshka were signed to Bella by Simon Raymonde whose Cocteau Twins bandmate Robin Guthrie, produced Lush’s debut long player many moons ago.
Miki, these days minus her ruby locks yet still sporting her trademark 12 stringer, together with her five cohorts (tonight’s line up is augmented by a backing vocalist and a keyboardist) are clearly delighted to be playing brand new material, looking forwards not backwards as every ‘Brickbat’ track is aired tonight.
The shuffling groove of album opener ‘This Must Be Bedlam’ gets things underway although dreamier numbers including ‘Village of the Damned’, ‘She’s Unreal’ and ‘Everlastingly Yours’ prove most endearing IMHO. We’re also treated to a cracking cover of Brummie classic, Au Pairs taut post-punk classic ‘It’s Obvious’, a song I’ve not heard for about thirty years.
Expect Piroshka to make waves on this summer’s festival circuit.
Words - Mike Price