Live Review: Saint Agnes (Leeds Brudenell Social Club, 19/11/21)

 

"How come it's not busier?" asks my mate a few minutes before Saint Agnes are due onstage.

"Well, considering it's a Tuesday night, it's probably the biggest Leeds venue they've played and they're a band who haven't really played up this way much before, I don't think this is too bad." I reply looking around the Brudenell which is about half full. Certainly I've seen more established bands pull smaller crowds than this here.

"Yeah but...I mean, we've both heard their music mate, they should be huge, right?" he answers.

I have to hand it to the guy, he's not wrong. In a just world, Saint Agnes would be huge. As it is, they're continuing to make good progress in recent years with even the likes of Kerrang! and the Metro newspaper devoting column inches to them in the last year or two, not bad for a band who your correspondent remembers playing the packed back room of the tiny Lock Tavern in Camden on one of his first encounters with them seven or eight years ago and fully deserved given their ferocious work ethic.

They've come on a long way since then of course and it says a lot about the quality of their recent EP's that tonight they feel comfortable leaving several of the stronger numbers from their sole full album to date, 2019's excellent Welcome To Silvertown out of the set like Death Or Glory Gang, I Feel Dangerous Around You and Diablo Take Me Home.

From the off tonight as they kick in with the rolling Daughter of Lucifer, this is a band bristling with a combative energy and songs like Vampire, The World Ain't Big Enough and brutal new single Uppercut show that when it comes to sheer controlled chaos, there's few can match this band while old favourites like Welcome To Silvertown and The Witching Hour already sound like cornerstones of the set, mixing a fierce energy with an ice cool menace.

"We don't do encores" explains singer Kitty as the group prepare to finish with a storming run through former single Brother, "We prefer to leave everything out here on the stage." It's a fitting summary of tonight's gig as we all stagger off homewards into the cold night. If Saint Agnes keep pushing ahead the way they're going, I see no reason why next time they're at the Brudenell they shouldn't be able to get a few more punters in. The rise of the daughters of Lucifer continues apace it would seem.

All pictures by Andy James Close. All rights reserved.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A brief return from the dead...

Image
  Yup, we're back. Don't all get excited at once. I’d been toying with the idea of doing an end of year list again this year and after a lot of umming and aahing eventually decided to go for it. As with last year, inevitably there were bumps along the way. As of the start of December, I thought this list would be around 40 albums but inevitably reading other people’s lists pointed me towards a bunch of stuff that had passed me by earlier in the year. Plus of course there’s always a few teasing buggers who put stuff out at the last possible moment. So 40 became 50 which became 60 which finally became 70. You lucky people. Actually though, reading through this list, the main thing that strikes me is that I think this might be the most musically varied end of year list that Nite Songs has ever done. From gentle acoustics through acclaimed indie veterans to punk thrash and good old fashioned scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll via some decidedly unexpected diversions (industrial folk music? Check...
Read more

Garbage Days Revisited #90: Soho Roses - "The Third And Final Insult" (1989)

Image
  "If you won't love me then I'll find someone who will!"  - Soho Roses  - So Alone The Soho Roses were a classic case of right band, wrong time. If they'd broken on to the scene in the last few years then they'd have had a ready made audience on the 21st century power pop scene and probably be regulars at Some Weird Sin and similar club nights in the Smoke. The reality? They broke through towards the tail end of the '80s and got lumped in with the dying embers of the Soho glam scene, leaving behind one sadly underappreciated album and a few EP's before self-combusting. In a way, I sort of see the Roses as a British version of Enuff Z'Nuff. Not so much in terms of their sound but more of the fact that they were a group crowbarred in with glam who weren't really a natural fit there and kind of paid the price for it - I've always thought Enuff Z'Nuff sounded more like a Britpop band with flashbomb guitars than a hair metal band. Oh sure, ...
Read more

Album Review: The Fades - "Night Terrors"

Image
  Hailing from South London, the Fades are gaining a reputation of one of the premier garage rock bands in the capital these days and, as with a few albums we've reviewed in these webpages of late, Night Terrors  was written during the lockdown as it was a recurring feature of life for the band's frontman Dave during the lockdown. As befits its title and subject matter, Night Terrors  is an off-kilter effort which might take a few listens to get into but rewards those who persevere with it. Certainly, the discordant vocals and guitars often give the impression of the whole operation being on the verge of collapse on the likes of The Pessimist  and Known It All Along  while Lost My Job  goes into XTC/Nightingales style post-punk territory. However, the likes of People In General  show that they can rein the weirdness in and build up an intriguing multi-part epic which starts off as tuneful new wave before drifting into a nightmarish state-of-the-nation ...
Read more