The Bakelite Age, The FrowningClouds, Ouch My Face @ TheTote, Melbourne (17/06/2010)

Tue 22nd Jun, 2010 in Gig Reviews

There’s nothing like a little random screamadelica to get us back into the swing of things at the regutted, newly licensed, ‘same, same, but different’ Tote tonight. Enter Ouch My Face. For a diminutive, coke-bottle glasses wearing Celeste Potter on maniacal vocals and guitar, playing Melbourne’s iconic rock institution again is a privilege she thought was dead and buried. Joined by Ben Wundersitz on drums and ‘Big Show’ Steven Huf on bass, this scribe is transfixed with the sound emanating from the speakers. Postal to the core, Ouch My Face receive a terrible reception in all honestly from the still-filling bandroom, but for mine they’re a revelation.

The same unfortunately can’t be said for The Frowning Clouds. I totally get where these mop-tops are coming from, but the performance tonight is monotonous. Tapping that 60’s garage sound, the lads jingle and jangle their way through to the end of the set but something’s just not floating my boat at all. Perhaps it’s the fact that my brain is still wired into the Ouch My Face electro shock apparatus? Yeah, that’s it. I just can’t shake the brutal soundscape free… nor do I want to. On reflection, my dismissal of The Frowning Clouds show relates more to their strange addition to a distorted psych/rock/metal/noise band bill on offer this eve. I’m just not sure the choice to include the Geelong quintet was inspired at all, with the lads never reaching the manic heights of both Ouch My Face or Link ‘Meanie’ McLennan’s splendidly warped, The Bakelite Age.

Ripping through a rather frenetic set, McLennan and co show the youngsters what rock is all about – it’s not the clothes you wear, or the way you walk – it’s about writing and delivering quality tunes. Nothing more. Wild, oscillating licks peeling off the Kieran Clancy lead and complementing Link’s visceral style at every turn tonight. Delivering their ‘hit’ as Link refers to it, The Dead Play Well , in all its raspy, snarling riff-laden glory, our humble narrator then has the good grace to launch up onto the bass amp to tear into the opening of Walkin’ In My Shadow from 2007’s The Art Of Evil Genius. A definite rock move that was all heart, all Tote. Particularly when the slightly inebriated frontman loses his balance, only to precariously hop back down to terra firma.

Forgetting lyrics being another raw, rock trademark. Malleable Demons Plus Q’s Nostradamus finds the band looking around at one another, unsure of its delivery. Classic. The recovery coming via the form of the hazy Serotonin Sea that’s belted out staggeringly with big drums and penetrative guitars that wail and writhe and fuse into Link’s drone vocals that go, well, apeshit! It’s quite apt then that Silverback follows towards the end. All and all it’s a wonderfully hyperactive set from one of Melbourne’s finest exponents of psych rock, with the reformed Collingwood venue being the perfect haunt to house such ‘Tote-worthy’ sounds.