Inheaven were one of my favourite bands of the mid-2010’s; bursting into my consciousness with a fully-formed debut album, incorporating elements of post-punk, shoegaze and wall-of-noise sleazoid rock into a fascinating, leather-clad and rose petal-strewn melting pot, they were also a fiercely ambitious lot, clearly going places in a hurry. I saw them 3 times in barely 8 months (gigs 1,043, 1,057 and 1,070) and was bolted in for the longhaul with them. That is, until a blood-splattered bouquet posted on Facebook with the epithet “RIP 2015-2018” heralded their demise… dammit! OK, fast forward 5 years or so, when I picked up on a deliriously metronomic track “Runnin’” by new name Wings Of Desire, downloaded that and their subsequent excellent synth-washed post-punk anthology album “Life Is Infinite”, and then looked up who they actually were, only to find WoD were effectively the 2-headed creative force behind Inheaven, namely vocalist James Taylor and his partner-in-crime, Swindon’s own Chloe Little! This duo having happily been restored to my listening habit, all I needed was a show to follow this up…
Happily, a debut headlining tour
was in the offing, and I brainwashed Tim into taking me along to the Bristol
Rough Trade show, still being a few weeks away from being cleared to drive
myself. I’d also organised some seats, and on arrival found they were right
down the front of this splendid little back room, house left. Result! Chilled
awhile as the hardy early comers trickled in out of the drizzly Tuesday
evening, until openers Hunny Buzz took the stage at 8. Fronted by a vivacious
female vocalist with a lilting, beguiling voice, they immediately impressed
with a varied set of buoyant indie pop, incorporating a lot of familiar
elements but never descending into obvious plagiarism. Opener “Chess Game”’s
seductive backbeat built into a rousing choral hook, “Love Me Like You Used To”
was a much more upbeat, careering Popguns-like old school indie banger with a
“woah-oh” hook, and “Not Your Place” featured an almost Skids-like dark and
robust opening riff, building into a C86 jangle-fest with a snarky, Coach
Party-like chorus. A few little bumps in the road here and there (particularly
from the drummer, who dropped his stick a couple of times, laudably resorting
to playing with his hands!), but to be expected from this very young band, and
a very promising set overall was concluded by their best number “Now I Can Get
Over You”, a stream-of-consciousness verse vocal kicking into a big
powerpop/Blondie hook. Nice work!
Wings Of Desire themselves took the stage dead on 9 after a short interval in front of a slightly disappointing but understandable turnout on this dank midweek evening, James centre stage, resplendent in olive and tweed, and Chloe, sporting outsized David Byrne jacket, sited behind a synth desk. Opener “Runnin’”, eased into life, the post-punk haunting swirl and synth-augmented mood immediately setting the tone for the set overall; where their forbears Inheaven were all about strident guitar licks and leather-clad rock, WoD evoke a dreamier, more ephemeral mood, keyboard-embellished but never dominated, and still notably post-punk tinged. In a nutshell, they’ve thrown away the first 2 Jesus And Mary Chain albums and replaced them with New Order’s opening double salvo…!
“Be Here Now” was an early
highlight, featuring a deadpan verse delivery from James almost recalling The
Passage (!), the subsequent “Chance Of A Lifetime” was a slower burn with
intertwining vocals from James and Chloe, and “A Million Other Suns” featured Interpol-like
laconic atmospherics. “This is the longest set we’ve ever done!” announced the
hitherto taciturn vocalist before “Perfect World”, their most Inheaven-esque
number, the JAMC backbeat leading to a soaring surf punk hook with a droney,
Velvets-like outro, then a later “Angels” was full-on Cocteaus dreampop,
stately and elegiac, with a disaffected lead vocal from Chloe. A rather
splendid actually set concluded with thanks from the band, and the pulsing
intro to “001”, which built to a New Order “Ceremony”-esque final guitar crescendo
to end (if I’m honest, not the first WoD number to do so tonight), at which
point I leapt (hah!) up to grab James’ list.
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