Some nights tell you exactly what they are within the first ten minutes. If an opening band is supposed to set the tone, then You Win Again, Gravity waste absolutely no time doing just that.
They are technically dazzling, and with bands like this, that is very much the point. Harmonies fold into one another, songs peak and trough when they feel like it, and structures bend rather than snap. Whether it’s “Don’t Need Me Here (Part One)” or “Harboured,” where keys are piped in and allowed to breathe, they do exactly what they want — and make it feel inevitable. Short and sweet, as they themselves put it, but devastatingly effective. If you could hand-pick a band to support Between The Buried And Me, you may well land right here.
That upward momentum carries straight into Ihlo. Having recently toured with Leprous across Europe, this feels like a band very much on the rise — and one fully aware of what they’re capable of. Five songs in around forty minutes, and not a second of it wasted.
They draw heavily on the heavier end of their sound tonight — the kind of modern prog heft that nods back ten or fifteen years without feeling remotely dated. Andy Robinson spends much of the set on his knees, consumed by the performance, as if possessed by the music itself. There’s nothing performative about it — it feels instinctive, almost unavoidable.
At times the sound is industrial and claustrophobic, pressing in from all sides, yet they also allow moments of real expansion. “Source” in particular opens out before locking into a metallic crunch that feels perfectly suited to the second city, as they point out themselves. “Cenotaph” underlines the heavier undercurrent running through what they do, before the set closes with “Union.”
They do speak — but the music simply says more, and louder.
Which brings us to Between The Buried And Me — a band that makes reviewing them feel almost pointless, because all the usual rules simply do not apply. They don’t sound like anyone else, they don’t behave like anyone else, and they don’t structure songs the way “normal” bands do. They are their own entity, and always have been.
With the release of The Blue Nowhere late last year, this tour feels like both a statement and a reaffirmation. Opening with “Absent Thereafter,” they immediately set out their stall — passion, precision, and a refusal to signpost where anything is going. You think you’ve got a handle on it, then it mutates. A rock’n’roll opening appears out of nowhere. Something else collapses beneath it. It shouldn’t work. It absolutely does.
“Selkies: The Endless Obsession,” the oldest song they play tonight, remains a marvel — twisting, ominous, piano-led in places, violently technical in others, and still sounding like it arrived fully formed from some alternate musical universe.
Newer material holds its own without blinking. “God Terror” and “Sun of Nothing” form the centre of the set, the latter in particular showcasing the astonishing range of Tommy Giles Rogers. He moves effortlessly from death-growled brutality to soaring, emotive vocals, and you’re left genuinely baffled as to how one human being can house that many voices. It’s dazzling, disorientating, and completely compelling.
Dan Briggs’ bass work at times channels something almost Zappa-esque — especially on “Stare Into the Abyss” — but again, it’s Rogers who leaves you shaking your head in disbelief. You don’t so much follow what’s happening as submit to it.
When Rogers picks up the guitar for “The Blue Nowhere,” there’s a strange clarity to it all — a glimpse of what this band might sound like if they existed in a more conventional musical world. Not better. Just different. And it only underlines that this is a choice. Every left turn, every gear shift, every refusal to settle.
They return for an encore that feels inevitable rather than indulgent. “Silent Flight Parliament” is, even by their standards, outrageously involved — a mini-epic that sums up why no one else can do this the way they do. It’s followed by “Goodbye to Everything Reprise,” a closing statement that somehow manages to feel both overwhelming and perfectly resolved.
Trying to sum up BTBAM always ends the same way. You watch them and think: WTF is happening?
And then, almost immediately: My goodness, this is good.
