The Golden Lion is a legendary venue - especially in the Psych world and more of late with dance DJs. Set in the hilly and beautiful area that of the Calder Valley which also contains the equally famous Trades Club at Hebden Bridge.
Locean go for it straight away, after some sort of confusing sound check the band launch into a full on psych wall of noise and the vocalist is rolling around the floor from seconds in. It’s loud and repetitive music, the drums keep it all focussed, the guitar and bass go off on their own frequently but they keep to the rhythm (albeit their own rhythm) and the vocals focus it all making sure you are hearing all the fragments as one cohesive entity.
Gnod though, if you’ve never seen them they are hard to describe. A veritable assault on the ear that can leave an audience bruised. Their sound develops and changes constantly but always they repeat strange heavy riffs until your head wants to explode. They fill the audible spectrum completely and are one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. At some point in a Gnod gig thinking becomes impossible and it all becomes dreamlike. Have they been playing 10 minutes or 10 hours, insignificant things like time become meaningless.
The band may have evolved sonically over the years (and will no doubt continue to change) but their use of outright noise and rhythm is still there, the deep sludge encrusted angular almost noise-jazz riffs with those odd timings that keep it all fresh to the ear are repeated endlessly and the flat out bass and manic but controlled drums add more layers and keep it all building up and up until, suddenly, its over. The audience is back in the world, time flows, conscious thought returns and I’m left with a feeling that somehow my soul has just been exorcised.
Words: Richie Yates, Photos: Adrian Wharton/Richie Yates
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