Canadian quartet Holy Fuck, seem to effortlessly achieve the perfect blend of electronic geekiness combined with organic psychedelic rock. Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh share front man duties between themselves, both surrounded by a more bewildering array of electronic gadgetry than if they’d ram-raided a branch of Tandy right before the show.
Two Matts make up the rhythm section, McQuaid on bass and Schultz on drums, underpinning everything beautifully, giving the Holy Fuck sound a welcome dose of analogue authenticity.
Tonight’s initially sparse Belgrave audience has slowly grown in size and expectancy so come show time it’s three-quarters full, enough to generate a decent atmosphere as the urgency of ‘Chimes Broken’ gets things off to a hectic start with no let-up in the vocal fuzz ball follow-up ‘Tom Tom’, the fluid interplay between the four musicians evident, seemingly making light work compiling the complex array of analogue and digital sound….a sort of punk funk meets Ozrics.
The deliciously retro space rock feel of ‘Latin America’ steadily builds as the heads start to nod in unison and with a cracking new EP to showcase, eccentric title track ‘Bird Brains’ inevitably proves to be one of the evening’s numerous highlights of what proves to be a belting gig.
If live were a science fiction movie these guys would be as big as Radiohead.
Words - Mike Price
