The Mess Hall, Even, BuriedHorses @ The Espy, Melbourne(17/07/2010)

Mon 19th Jul, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Buried Horses continued to etch out their existence under their new name (formerly known as The Swindlers) and cracked a few heads together early on. The sparse room was appreciative of singer Mark Berry’s forced vocals, which nodded The Drones’ Gareth Liddiard in more ways than one. The words are pushed hard from the diaphragm and ejected through spittle-flecked lips as the band cranks through its angular and shadowy vibe. The Nirvana-esque soft-loud mystique is evident in stand out song Jawbone.

Sandwiched between the two blues rockers- whose lyric sheets are undoubtedly stained with the traditional rock staples of red wine and tears – was a more prosaic affair with Ash Naylor’s 90s classic pop-rock band Even. The ubiquitous white Stratocaster abounded with glorious rock poses as they set about recapturing what it was which made this band one of the greatest under-appreciated outfits of the last decade and a half. 2001’s Life Gets In The Way tipped its hat at their epic power-pop, while newer effort Which Way To Run slapped me in the face with how gorgeous a clean, simple Strat wielded by a knowing hand could melt a heart (and maybe even a face or two).

With little to no recognition from the audience near the back of the long room, The Mess Hall’s Jed Kurzel and Cec Condon wandered on and cracked into a rather low trifecta of songs – including New Ornithology and Bell from their most recent album For The Birds – which signalled the beginning of a strange and confusingly flat set list. Tijuana 500 and Lorelie suffered from the toms being muffled in the mix, but lost nothing when it came to crowd participation. 2007’s Keep Walking was miles away from its frantic best, with the guitar angles rounded off in the mix to be replaced instead by a heightened aggression and almost zealot-level crowd participation during an impressive call-and-response section worked into the song’s climax. Despite seemingly making all the right noises and ticking most of the right boxes when it came to putting on a cracking gig, something was just not quite right.

It may be absurd to spell it out, but The Mess Hall are a band built on energy. Its thumping, tom-heavy drum and slicing guitar work combined with Kurzel’s biting vocals creates a distinct excitement amongst its audience, always teetering on the edge of control most of the time. In most gigs, that energy is legendary as it feeds back to the band on stage for them to again channel it through their instruments. With that element lacking, however, it was abundantly clear that something was amiss and it changed the atmosphere of the gig immeasurably.

It may have been just the malaise of Melbourne punters, but toward the end of the set the crowd had noticeably shifted focus and seemed most interested in conversation or eking out their place at the bar. From the middle of the throng, Kurzel cut a fairly lonely figure on stage as he alternated between listing over Condon’s kit, or attacking the mic stand and stabbing out his vocals to the throng. Pulse failed to live up to its name, while My Villain lacked sharpness and piquancy and was forced instead into a punk colouration to capture at least some of its heart. The end-set break was hardly noticed, and was punctuated as usual by Kurzel’s take on democracy by asking the audience for their preferred encore songs – and dismissing them out of hand – before cracking on regardless. A short encore of Disco Pt 1 and Pills was consistent with the rest of the set and failed to truly live up to the high standards set by the two-piece.