Alpine, Boy In A Box, DirtFarmer @ Northcote SocialClub, Melbourne (07/07/2011)

Mon 11th Jul, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Opening up proceedings on a wintry Thursday night, Dirt Farmer brought a distinctly rural feel to the Northcote Social Club. Camped somewhere in the hinterland between folk, country and indie-pop, and within a day’s walk of sixties psychedelia, the denim-clad, multi-hatted band delivered a set of loose, charming tunes. Lead singer Stuart Barlow’s voice was improbably sweet, gliding effortlessly over the crunch and jangle of the band’s three guitars, to most notable effect on the sad-eyed falsetto chorus of Johnny Marble.

In between the damper and the tofu and mushroom wrap was the meat and potatoes. Boy In A Box do hooks, they do big guitars and they like The Clash quite a lot. As they powered through their set, the pace never let up; every song sounded like a single, and it was easy to forget that this band is mere months old and yet to rack up a major release. Frontman Tobias Priddle was, as always, a magnetic presence at stage centre, but has toned down the shtick a little. Whether it’s due to growing confidence or road-weariness is unclear, but the reduction in ham-factor plays to the band’s strengths. Though they are clearly a tight unit, they are more exciting than many for the way that Priddle pushes at the edge of his range, scratching and straining to hit the highest notes in one of their many anthems, be it latest single Moon Comes Up or The Warriors, ‘the one from the footy’, as Priddle laconically described it.

Needless to say though, most of the night’s anticipation was reserved for Alpine. Performing in their hometown on the back of new single Villages, the co-ed six-piece returned to the scene of their successful February residency, only to find that things have hotted up since then. Thursday was the first of two consecutive packed-out shows, and Alpine set about showing fans new and old what they were about.

Strolling casually onto a stage adorned with fairy lights, beglittered frontwomen Lou and Phoebe commenced working the stage with rare conviction from the very first beat. In between trading lead vocals, harmonies and unison moments, the pair threw shapes like they were naughty kids listening to Flashdance at a slumber party.

Predictably, Heartlove and Icypoles, the signature songs from their debut EP Zurich, garnered the strongest responses and the most furtive boogie-ing the crowd – though few were able to match the tag-team effort onstage.

While they don’t give much by way of stage presence, the boys in the band have some serious chops, and form the backbone of Alpine’s distinctive, drum-tight sound. Propulsive drums with locked-in bass provided the bedrock on most songs, over which guitar lines, here percussive, there spidery, mingled with haunting synth tones. That’s the formula, and it’s a good one; no other Australian bands are attempting anything like this, certainly not with comparable success, and only Blonde Redhead and School Of Seven Bells comes to mind internationally.

The band’s command of volume was impressive; at times it was as if they were daring the audience to talk over them, dropping to a repeated kick drum, a plinking guitar riff, and a hushed vocal. Conversely, when they get big, they get big, building to a surging wave.

On the other hand, the drama that they are able to wring from their striking dynamic range is necessary, as Alpine stand no chance of pulling it from anywhere else. Though their songs are clean and effective, I wouldn’t call their songcraft inspired. Often there is a colour-by-numbers feel, a somewhat formulaic this-is-how-an-Alpine-song-goes approach. Coupled with a strange preference for hitting emotionally neutral chords just when a song is crying out to be sent over the top with a dramatic, leftfield change, the performance felt weirdly stylised, bordering on anodyne; at times during the show it was hard to believe that the band was hearing the same thing as the audience, such was the passion of the performance when contrasted with the restraint of the music.

This, of course, could all be attributed to matters of aesthetic preference. After all, the hooks are there, but not so easily digestible; often one frontwoman sings a chorus, with the other singing a rival chorus, meaning both sets of lyrics are lost in the fog. In this way, Alpine create some intricate, textured music, but at the expense of immediacy, and drama. Still, they do it their way, and they do it with style, and that’s worth something. When the opening chords of Villages rang out to a frenzied response from the audience, their audience, as the night drew to a close, it was clear that the Alpine Way has more than a few disciples.