Bad-timing and life’s general shit-show threatens to stand between me and a date with Bristol’s Heavy Lungs at Hyde Park’s Book Club, but with minutes to spare we are united and the band are primed and ready. You’ll quite possibly know the name of their singer - Danny Nedelko, yes he of that IDLES song fame. But Heavy Lungs are so much more than that as tonight proves.
The long-awaited album (All Gas, No Brakes) is fresh-as and still smouldering and this tour is hell-bent on putting the pedal to the metal and booting it head-long into willing faces up and down the country. The band accompanying Nedelko are the driving force behind the whole thing. ‘Matryoshka’ is a huge sounding slab of noise-rock. The beat-obscure ‘Dancing Man’ is a dark, repetitive beast that threatens and duly delivers with teeth clenched. The bare-chested sticksman behind the kit is a force of nature and in total synch with the throbbing, pulsing bass as the guitar alternates between desert-rock riffing and angular industrial sounds.
‘Head Tilter’ boasts QOTSA-cool rhythm and Future Of The Left bass-heavy energy. Nedelko darts in and out of the crowd, lapping up every moment as though this been the wait of a lifetime. His delivery, albeit repetitive in style, complements the wild, churning noise surrounding him. ‘(A Bit of a) Birthday’ is the bands very own ‘Song For The Dead’ a stoner-rock masterpiece and brings it to a fitting, filthy end.
Words - Pete Jackson