Little Volcanoes / Dark Sparks

One thing I dislike is bars that attempt to become an intimate gig venue and fail. Bar XS is such a bar, located in Fallowfield, Manchester and looks to me like some kind of old man hole with a few students thrown in to abuse the cheap drinks.

The place was booming as I walked through the door, but surprisingly not full at all. A crowd of people were gathered at the back of the room and around the bar but nobody at the front. It was strangely empty.

The ‘stage’ is no more than a slightly raised platform at the front of the room, the lighting is dim with those annoying disco lights that occasionally morph into interesting shapes on the floor, and there is a vast sense of distance between us and the bands for such a small space. Possibly because nobody would move forward, afraid to approach the dance floor.

Dark Sparks started things up but they really may as well not have bothered, as their vocals were drowned out by the dire sound system, and front man Leigh Greenwood did not pick up on the fact that we couldn’t hear a word he sang. Perhaps he mistook our faces of frustration for bemusement. Musically, the band were good and credit should be given to lead guitarist Adam Greenwood but again I got the feeling of having heard it all somewhere before, that generic Indie sound with strong beats. Perhaps swap the vocalist with someone who’s a little more talented and the band could have hope.

Little Volcanoes were much quicker on the up take and sorted the dubbed out microphone straight after their first song. The four piece have also got the right idea with attempting to do something different, venturing out a little further with their sound and rhythms and combining a mixture of indie with pop punk and Phil Quinns vocals are not the usual drone-and-whine sound bands often obtain. Songs such as ‘Sllag’ and ‘The Carjack song’ have good strong vocals and solid beats, easy to move too and probably wouldn’t offend anyone’s ears too heavily if played in public.

Whilst Little Volcanoes are a good band in their own right and I am sure they will do well with enough coverage and a firm fan base, I do feel that something was missing. Maybe it was the lack of atmosphere in the venue but my attention wasn’t held as much as it should have been and I feel with indie being such a hard genre to try and stand out in, the wow factor is very much needed to make it to the top.

The band are next playing at Academy 3 in March, a much better venue all round. Go and give them a listen.

FUTURE GIGS

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