Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.10.2008, Side 16

“Thanks to Nick for coming”. Nick is the jolly
American squashing his frame against the bar-
rier and he’s here to see For A Minor Ref lection
again. This is their sixth show at Airwaves. We
can assume from the way he sways and swoons
to their cryptic drone rock that Nick has made the
majority. You’d guess that he likes the way their
songs build into ten-minutes-on-one-chord semi-
epics and probably loves Mogwai. Chug. Chug.
Chug. Churn. Churn. Churn. Zzz. Zzz. Zzz.
Next. Band. Please. Unlike the Ref lections, Sud-
den Weather Change know when to cut the thing
short before boredom sets in. They switch vocal-
ists and genres every thirty seconds. The closest
band you could peg them to is Fugazi, albeit af-
ter taking several albums worth of XTC. Midway
through their set a spontaneous slam pit of topless
young men starts up to the sound of three of the
five Weather Change’s screaming “OH MY GOD,
I HATE NICHOLAS CAGE”. We hope that’s what
they were saying anyway, because if so that’s the
best lyric of the festival. Nothing subtle but still
pretty immense. Singapore Sling are proof that
modern culture is formed from whatever past
movements contemporary musicians fancy slam-
ming into each other. The Sling have bashed to-
gether Lou Reed’s monochrome 70s and the dark
side of the 60s, namely U.S. garage rockers, The
Sonics. They’ve brought some period pieces with
them – the wine bottle wrapped in brown paper
and the duck’s arse greaser hairdos are a particu-
larly nice touches – but they look too young and
nervous to properly carry these manliest of gen-
res on their skinny shoulders. Lots of rock points
for hiring a band member solely to play the tam-
bourine though. Boy Crisis probably formed
their band to get laid more. They’re a quartet of
jerky, nerdy, sweaty, passion-led American bucks
from the Hall and Oates school of seduction. As
such they deliver their brand of very purple punk-
funk with a hefty wodge of irony, Their standout
track, ‘1981’, is ridiculous and sexy and scrappy
and filthy and ultimately (after a couple of awk-
ward stabs in the dark) very, very satisfying. Now,
anyone got a cigarette? Or something stronger for
Handsome Furs? From their on-stage banter they
sure love their acid. All the acid, all the time. That
aside, this Canadian duo follow Singapore Sling
in taking two seemingly disparate eras and forc-
ing them into bed together. In this case it’s 90s
house and 70s proletariat punk. One day that king
of experimentation, Elvis Costello, will ring these
guys up for a collaborative album. Suggested title:
Ebenezer Shipbuilds a Good Army. The rest of the
night is a blur of brainless, soulless electro. Junior
Boys drag on $250,000 worth of synth boxes when
they would have been better off spending $2.50 on
a metronome – their live elements are horrible out
of time. Robots in Disguise, an all female dance-
rock group, play a set drowned out by the sound of
Sleater-Kinney’s royalty cheque spinning slowly in
its grave and FM Belfast – who have been mostly
superb throughout Airwaves – disappoint thanks
to an out-of-sync backing track. Our man Nick
would not approve. henry BArnes
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