Album launchs tend to get a bit of a bad rap; all too often, the image springs to mind of industry types quaffing champers and canapes and paper-cutting unsuspecting support bands with business cards. The welcome return of Nottingham's goth-glam sextet sees The Rescue Rooms at bursting point with support from shoegaze experimentalists Swimming lending the night a
technicolor edge, thankfully free of ponytailed A and R men in pinstripe suits and bluetooth headsets. With a set that flits from dreamy psychedelia to Verve-esque baggy and back again, Swimming certainly make up for the bitterly frosty conditions outside and baptise us in a half-hour of tunes warmer than a bath of mulled wine.
Tonight's headliners aren't ones for muted introvertedness; their second LP, of which tonight is the official launch, is a masterclass in flares-wearing gypsy-goth, the likes of which don't easily translate to a late-November Rescue Rooms gathering. Carnival in a forest perhaps, but not NG1 on a grim Saturday evening. So it's with a hasty aplomb that Hellset launch into stop-start album opener 'Whores and Vipers...' which could easily soundtrack the clicking of seatbelts aboard wooden-cart rollercoasters the land over. With Hellset playing the album in full, it could've been easy to get lost; a set's worth (bar closer 'Orpheus...') of tracks drawn from an as yet unreleased CD could well be akin to a torchless night-hike, but the flag-waving Queen histrionics of 'Miss July '89' and the thrash-disco of '22055' - featuring vocalist Michael's impromptu Hutchence-esque hip shakes - are so effortlessly captivating, it's impossible not to adore every second. With just the one live date confirmed as we write (well, type) it's difficult not to imagine a mammoth tour of all the operahouses and derilect theatres the country has to offer being on the cards. At the very least, a headline set aboard the waltzers at Goose Fair '09 sounds ideal.
The Hellset Orchestra played:
technicolor edge, thankfully free of ponytailed A and R men in pinstripe suits and bluetooth headsets. With a set that flits from dreamy psychedelia to Verve-esque baggy and back again, Swimming certainly make up for the bitterly frosty conditions outside and baptise us in a half-hour of tunes warmer than a bath of mulled wine.
Tonight's headliners aren't ones for muted introvertedness; their second LP, of which tonight is the official launch, is a masterclass in flares-wearing gypsy-goth, the likes of which don't easily translate to a late-November Rescue Rooms gathering. Carnival in a forest perhaps, but not NG1 on a grim Saturday evening. So it's with a hasty aplomb that Hellset launch into stop-start album opener 'Whores and Vipers...' which could easily soundtrack the clicking of seatbelts aboard wooden-cart rollercoasters the land over. With Hellset playing the album in full, it could've been easy to get lost; a set's worth (bar closer 'Orpheus...') of tracks drawn from an as yet unreleased CD could well be akin to a torchless night-hike, but the flag-waving Queen histrionics of 'Miss July '89' and the thrash-disco of '22055' - featuring vocalist Michael's impromptu Hutchence-esque hip shakes - are so effortlessly captivating, it's impossible not to adore every second. With just the one live date confirmed as we write (well, type) it's difficult not to imagine a mammoth tour of all the operahouses and derilect theatres the country has to offer being on the cards. At the very least, a headline set aboard the waltzers at Goose Fair '09 sounds ideal.
The Hellset Orchestra played:
- Whores and Vipers Ride The Welcome Wagon
- Welcome to the Sorcery Clan
- Bakare's Secret Space Station
- 1970s Projection of the Future
- The Carrousel Awaits
- Weak Are These Hands
- Ferocious Ass
- Miss July '89
- Monstro Says 'Sound The Horn'
- 22055
- Wind Her
- Orpheus' Incredulous Eyepop
www.myspace.com/hellsetorchestra
www.myspace.com/swimmingband
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