Future of the Left, Fighting with Wire, 20/08/08, London Monto Water Rats

Monto Water Rats is nothing like the vermin-infested dive its name suggests; the 200 or so capacity venue is more akin to a miniature country-mansion theatre than a rickety old barge, with chandeliers strung low throughout the room and those big emulsion-white archaic pillars either side of the stage. That said, the former may have been a more appropriate setting for tonight’s support act, Fighting with Wire. Made up of ex-members of Jetplane Landing, the threesome strike an angsty middle ground between old tourmates Biffy Clyro and Inme, retaining the melodies of JL and piling on a massive dolloping of post-At the Drive-In hardcore that’s immediately likeable: it’s easy to see why tracks like recent single ‘Everyone Needs a Nemesis’ landed them onto the good ship Atlantic a few months ago

But with a major label comes no hint of restraint: frontman Cahir takes the occasion to bash Reverend and the Makers after the two shared a stage at a recent festival: ‘They made the Enemy sound like Captain fucking Beefheart’. Whilst he may well have a point there’s nothing particularly innovative about Fighting with Wire’s music, albeit a well-grounded alternative sound that’s as much punk as it is pop, as likely to encourage singalongs as circle pits. There’s a lot to love about radio-friendly rock this good, especially the vocal harmonies. They’re back for a headline show here next month.

Future of the Left, however, could be here all week; such is their winning way not only musically but comically as well, a far more assured trio than when they played White Heat here last year. Opening with Wrigley Scott, with its manic lyrics about people getting together to eat ‘sausage on a stick’ the band encounter technical difficulties barely a third of the way through. It’s hardly a catastrophe, however: clearly Reverend and the Makers have been a massive hit backstage, because they’re given a verbal slaughtering tonight. FotL aren’t bitter about the success of their better-known semi-peers, though, and the subject isn’t dwelled on too extensively.

That’s the main joy of tonight’s performance: between songs the improvised banter is frequently witty, barbed and often hilarious, much like the band’s music. Good thing it’s being recorded. The one-two punch of ‘Plague of Onces’ and ‘Fingers Become Thumbs’ follows, the latter’s chorus chanted back football terrace-like by all those assembled. Then comes the new stuff, and there’s no huge departure from Curses’ M.O: still fuzzy, jagged guitar lines against Andy Falkous’s stern, menacing voice. What’s surprising is just how much Future of the Left continue to get out of such a minimal set-up, so wilfully solitary in making ragged British rock music when everyone’s abandoning it for synths, electro and/or post-rock. Only two of the five thus far unreleased tracks sound like they wouldn’t have slotted comfortably onto that album: ‘Avalanche’, with its Les Savy Fav-style vocal echoes and wall of distortion chorus, and the closer, easily the longest and most conventionally punk thing they’ve done so far.

“What increments of sound would you like adjusted?” Falkous asks facetiously to drummer Egglestone after a particularly aggressive ‘Manchasm’. In-between ‘Fuck the Countryside Alliance’ and the obtuse lyricisms of a rousing, fidgety ‘Small Bones, Small Bodies’ we get a recollection of taking a piss next to Tim Wheeler, promises of Jaffa Cakes at full-time and a lecture to the front line on having fun within the confines of respectful etiquette at gigs. It’s almost got to the point where we’re waiting for the songs to end and for Falkous and Mathias to start ranting on another subject, be it Sebastian Coe or the guy in the Tool shirt down the front. It’s a real show, a streamlined hour or so in which the best moments of Curses all sound equally vital and the evident potential in the new songs raises them up to the same level. It’s difficult for me to remember a time when a band I was relatively haphazard about so utterly convinced me of their merit in a show. Maybe it was the Jaffa Cakes that did it.

Fighting With Wire

Future of the Left

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