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The Appleseed Cast (Jeniferever, Vessels)

The Burdenell Social Club, Leeds on 12 June 2006
Reviewed by Dave on 13th June 2006

It is a warm and muggy night, the thunderstorms that were promised by the Met Office have failed to arrive, and inside the Burdenell Social Club it is hot, hotter than the surface of the sun.

The whole gig seemed to be a rather casual affair, with the bands just milling around in the main bit of the venue. As soon as I step through the door someone asks me to take his photo with a man who looks like an Icelandic fisherman, it later turns out that this ‘fisherman’ is The Appleseed Casts lead singer.

Vessels

If you took equal parts Deftones and equal parts Sigur Rós and mixed it all together the result would be Vessels.

By far the band’s best song was their opening number, which I have since forgotten the name of. The song is beautiful and it reminded me of hearing 'Hoppipolla' for the fist time, suddenly all weariness is lifted from me, I’m not worried about anything and all other feelings are replaced with one of utter contentedness.

After crafting such a glorious soundscape (thank you NME) the band seek to dismantle it piece by piece with heavier more prog-metal songs. ‘The Beast’ is one such song, heavy and instrumental, it comes midway through the set, which from the soaring heights of the first song has been dragged down to some murky depths.

Rating: 8/10
Website: www.myspace.com/vesselsband

Jeniferever

I recently bought Jeniferever’s album but have not given it a proper listen to, I keep getting distracted by other bands. After watching them tonight though, I am going to make a concentrated effort to listen to it.

Much like Vessels, Jeniferever mix gloriously slow and winding guitar hooks with louder, heavier hooks, their songs feature long and meandering instrumental parts that provide a stark contrast to the harsh, edgy vocals.

The set comes to an abrupt end when the last song falls into feedback and the band simply jump down off the stage and walk off to rapturous applause. Whilst I did enjoy the whole set, I did at times find myself thinking about the most random things and not really concentrating on what was going on, in short they failed to captivate me as much as Vessels had done, but it was still a rather enjoyable set over all.

Rating: 7/10
Website: www.jeniferever.com

The Appleseed Cast

The Appleseed Cast were loud, really loud, and I was glad to be standing farther back than I was for Jenniferever.

Appleseed Cast are another band whose album I have recently bought but have not really given it too much attention (It was ‘Low Level Owl’ not the new ‘Peregrine’) and again, it is clearly something that I need to listen to more often.

I have heard them described as America’s Radiohead, and while a few tracks from Low Level Owl do sound reminiscent of Pablo Honey era Radiohead, live Appleseed Cast are an altogether noisier affair then Radiohead. There are also no droning melodies to be found in this set, each song is explosive and full of energy.

The crowd loved the entire set and the band were quickly called back onto stage for a three song encore, seemingly by one guy stood next to me, who I swear has burst my left ear drum. When the band left the stage for the second time it was to deafening applause and a chorus of “whoops”, catcalls, and wolf whistles.

Rating: 9/10
Website: www.appleseedcast.com

I left the Burdenell soaking wet and exhausted, I think that I may have lost 3 or 4lbs in that venue, most of which is still clinging to my very moist t-shirt. On the way out I hear someone saying that going to hot sweaty gig venues would be a great way for fat people to lose weight, they are probably not wrong.

It was an excellent night, with three great bands playing, but I am still in two minds as to whether or not I liked the venue itself, but that’s probably because I hate being too hot, had it been a bit chillier I probably would really like the venue.

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