Audio Bullys

A critical success overshadowed by The Streets’ own limelight-hogging antics, 2003’s ‘Ego War’ was the Audio Bullys’ chart-obliterating, genre-resurrecting mega-smash that never was. People jeered that dance was dead whilst The Strokes & The White Stripes ruled. Attitudes were so adamant that rock was the way forward that even The Darkness managed to slip a quick one past quality control. On the flip-side, Mike Skinner became the face of the up and coming UK grime/garage/urban/dance/eski/igloo/whatever new name that had been invented that week scene, and whilst people who had never even sniffed the ‘urban’ existence at the centre of the movement stroked their chins, trying to make insightful comments on the merits of Skinner’s straight-talk, Audio Bullys more or less got overlooked.

Singles ‘Real Life’ and ‘We Don’t Care’, the only two songs with a passing resemblance to The Streets’ sound, were released at an uncomplimentary time, giving the false impression they were merely riding the wave of another’s success. When the album finally came out it became apparent that Audio Bullys were much more than just lairy troublemakers producing soundtracks for fighting pissheads, but the freshest, most exciting music producers to come out of the UK since The Chemical Brothers. The critics lapped it up, but commercially the damage had been done and no one seemed to care too much.

Fast forward to 2005 and it’s a different story. It’s funny how a single sample can offer a career turn-around; it’s a sign of the times we’re living in. So whilst most people are probably sick to death of the ‘Bang Bang’ refrain of excellent comeback single, ‘Shot You Down’, at least everyone now knows who these Audio Bullys mavericks are.

With demand so high for tonight’s show at Stealth, the performance eventually gets up-graded to the larger venue, The Rescue Rooms, situated next door. As doors don’t end up opening until half past midnight, sobriety is a lost cause for the capacity crowd, leading to a chaotic and ramshackle crush to get inside. Opening up with the aforementioned ‘Shot You Down’ is proof enough that Audio Bullys have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to keep us entertained to be able to get it out of the way so early on. Over the course of the 75-minute set they perform songs old and new, twisted and turned into one another like an intricate mosaic of samples and beats. By the time they remix The Prodigy’s ‘Out Of Space’ the crowd are too wildly drunk and excitable to notice, but it’s clear everyone’s having fun so why complain?

Now that the Audio Bullys have made a mark on public consciousness, let’s hope they can follow through with a second album as innovative as their first, sealing their rightful position as the UK’s latest and greatest dance music purveyors.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.