Their show at the Middle East last year felt like the last time we’d see Wolf Alice at a venue that small, but Fenway Recordings managed to recreate that intimate feeling at Brighton Music Hall last night without skimping on the energy.
Since 2004, Fenway Recordings has brought international acts to intimate venues around Boston in a series called Fenway Recording Sessions. Last night’s show was a doubly good bill, featuring two acts from the UK on their way up, Slaves and Wolf Alice.
Slaves were loud, fast, and bare-bones punk rock. The two-piece warmed up the crowd right away, even though it was their first time in Boston. Their rambunctious yet cordial attitude came across in their songs, like “Cheer Up London,” a lamentable punk song about crabby people riding the London Underground, which Bostonians could more than relate to with the T. Their sound fuses the energy and abrasiveness of The Horror’s early works like “Jack the Ripper,” with London street attitude, rap, and metal-tinged rock–and they do it all with only percussion and one guitar (or bass guitar). Guitarist Laurie Vincent and percussionist/lead vocalist Isaac Holman act like they’ve been mates for forever (and they probably have), and genuinely wanted to audience to be their mates, too. They even asked everyone to hug the person next to them–including the bar staff. It was a powerful taste of how they’ve been exciting audiences throughout Europe for the past couple of years, and it was exciting to finally have them here.
Wolf Alice has been spending a lot of time in America recently: they’re in the middle of a US tour sprinkled with festival dates this summer. Their set was as powerful as Slaves, but in a very different way: Having already done a few circuits around the US, they were comfortable on stage and launched right into their set. The lights and reverberating vocals gave their performance a spacey, dreamlike feel. Their set ebbed and flowed, which showed off lead singer Ellie Rowsell’s range–bouncing from the delicate “ahhhs” and powerful melodies in “Your Loves Whore,” to shrill screams in oldies like “Fluffy” with ease. They closed their set with “Giant Peach,” which was exceptionally epic live, bringing out the hints of metal and doom rock in the song and leaving the audience wanting more (which they got, a la encore).
For me, Slaves was a real winner last night. As newcomers to the Boston scene, they definitely left a positive impression. It’s one thing to be successful in the UK, like Wolf Alice and Slaves are, but to bring that over to the US–a much different audience–and sell out a club like Brighton Music Hall, is a sign that both bands are surely on the rise here, too.
