THE BRONX
The Fleece, Bristol | February 23rd
Despite muted recent LP The Bronx IV meaning the band have now produced two slightly underwhelming albums on the bounce, hence haven’t actually released a full-length to justify their placing as the best punk band in the world since 2006, they still just are. They just are. We still step into a Bronx show with the highest possible expectations, and we never come away anything less than bloodied and elated.
Crack enters to the sound of opening band Axis Of, who somehow combine doomy guitar clang with an ‘oh oh oh’ chorus singalong in a way which is curiously very likeable. They’re followed by the much anticipated Canadian miscreants Single Mothers. Their set is a furiously delivered assault, breakdown heavy and thick with piercing hardcore fizzle and chugging single note riffs, all led by Drew Thompson, a frontman worthy of the name. His at times almost spoken, MewithoutYou-esque vocals are spat like a disdainful afterthought. It’s malevolent, invigorating and pretty fucking cool.
Entering to a foreboding spaghetti Western theme, the five members of The Bronx know full-well they’re onto a winner. The sold out crowd is baying for bedlam. From the second the band tear into The Bronx IV’s opener The Unholy Hand, we’re hopelessly convinced we love the new record. The room comes alive in a maelstrom of elastic bodies with no care for their own wellbeing. From one end of the catalogue to the next, debut album cut White Tar roars through the air as the audience scale the Fleece’s signature poles. “We got four shows left, it’s Saturday night, we got no security, no barriers” drawls vocalist Matt Caughtran through a grin “… I might just cash all my chips in tonight.”
He means it. We’ve witnessed The Bronx in the flesh god knows how many times over the last ten years, and they haven’t given an inch. Through a jaw-dropping Shitty Future, latest album highlight Under the Rabbit, and a truly brutal Rape Zombie, which sees the cuddliest lunatic of them all flings himself at the front rows, these are torchbearers of punk rock as a truly dangerous, incomparable thing. That song’s midsection (“the days are long but the nights are longer …”) is held out achingly, gloriously, before a remarkable, deafening explosion. What on recent records may seem somewhat mid-paced and strutty, here become searing wrecking balls. Valley Heat’s anthemic chorus is simply monumental. During Six Days a Week Matt finds himself hanging precariously from The Fleece’s circular central lighting rig as dozens of feral devotees claw at him.
This is a superhuman lust for disarray, a generosity and inclusivity that it’s very rare to witness. The band’s final double salvo of arguably their two finest songs, Heart Attack American and History’s Stranglers, leaves us in no doubt.
Best gig of 2013 so far? Blates. Best gig since we last saw The Bronx? Alright then.
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Words + Photo: Geraint Davies
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