HOOKWORMS
Soup Kitchen, Manchester | April 5th
Hookworms have become an unlikely success story of 2013, with their first album Pearl Mystic on Gringo Records challenging Wooden Shjips for their cosmic crown.
However, unlike the aforementioned San Franciscans, Hookworms have grounded their psychedelic performances in a strong punk aesthetic, choosing to cut the looped projected video footage of flowing autobahns for a staunch minimalism and a rabid search-and-destroy ethos. After enduring 30 intense minutes of their ferocious assault we’re left weak at the knees but begging for more.
Accompanied by a canopy of intersecting stage lights and random flourishes of a strobe, Hookworms launch into album opener Along/Towards, which swirls between heavily-reverbed guitar lines that in turn bounce around manic screams and whelps before descending into a punishing series of guitar chords and deranged cosmic slop. This brand of sonic S&M doesn’t let up: Form and Function is delivered with menacing precision, looping into the densely psychedelic Since We Had Changed, which acts as a fleeting respite before Preservation kicks in and Crack’s brain cells are subsequently melted onto the floor of the Soup Kitchen.
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Words: Alex Hall
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