The Recovery

@ Nottingham Wollaton Hall

A surprising warm and glorious day for the first Splendour Festival amid Wollaton Hall's green surroundings. Not so much a festival at 2.30 in the afternoon but more like a day in the park, with children playing Frisbee and couples lining the embankment of the historic Hall. The Recovery took it upon themselves therefore to remind everyone what a massive PA system in an open field can do.

They arrived on stage to what sounded like a World War 2 Siren which blasted a few ice creams from their cones as onlookers took a sudden interest to the Main Stage. Dressed like they were attending a funeral they opened with 'Sleepwalker' which didn't just melt ice creams, it decimated them! The guitars were loud, the drums were powerful and rock had ascended on Wollaton after a 6 year absence. They blasted through tracks from their EP including 'Buildings' and 'Escape Plans' with such aggression and swagger that it almost invited rain clouds to devour the sun and bring an end to the peacefulness of the day. The vocalist had hints of early Placebo and bounced high octaves off the Hall's ancient brickwork whilst the band provided an avalanche of distortion that Mogwai would be proud of. They even tackled a cover of Kylie Minogue's early nineties hit 'Confide In Me' which they did with tongue in cheek conviction and towering guitars. A little out of place for a festival that includes Kate Nash, The Charlatans and Paulo Nutini yet ironically a distinctive breath of fresh air from the mass produced indie pop crap currently drowning our radios. It was always going to be an uphill battle for The Recovery to win the hearts of this kind of festival crowd but never the less they wore their hearts on their black sleeves with immoveable confidence and destroyed the ambience for 30 minutes with some powerful riffs. A solid performance from a band who will never appeal to everyone but an honest attempt to put a spanner in the works.

Simon Maher, pic by Phil Swift

Culture Thieves / The Brute Chorus / Hey Sholay

@ Sheffield Grapes

The Grapes is perhaps most famous for the debut gig of Arctic Monkeys but has a long tradition of having one of the best sounds in town which draws some excellent bands and tonight's gig doesn't buck the trend. We arrived just in time to see Hey Sholay play a set which livens the surprisingly thinly populated venue from the off. Animated vocalist Liam, remarkably dressed in Indian headdress, feather and facepaint, has an impressive vocal range to match his stage persona. 'Once upon a time' is an amazing track that goes down well the audience and has great lead guitar from Laurie but the highlight is probably 'Hey hey hey' with, at times, megaphone assisted vocals. An impressive set by a very promising band with a fairly unique sound.

Londoners The Brute Chorus take the stage with another manic frontman James giving a breathtaking performance in an excellent line up. Describing their sound is near impossible, folk, blues, punk, country you name it and its there somewhere ! Lauded by Steve Lamacq and Zane Lowe, these guys are the real deal, no hype here. New single 'grow fins' is a jerky stop start track to keep the listener on their toes, and James' high powered stage movements and expressive voice give the delivery an extra dimension. My favourite though is 'chateau' an exhilarating song that like the band, is great on record but best seen live.

Topping the preceding two acts is beyond the headliners, Chesterfield rock band The Culture Thieves, not least because the audience left en masse with only a sprinkling of fans left to hear a tidy professional set. To their credit they give their all, driven by leader Mick and close with a tongue in cheek 'thanks Wembley', nice touch.

Sean Bruce

Bracken / Gareth S. Brown / Sketches For Albinos / The Declining Winter

@ Leeds Packhorse

The Declining Winter get considerable mileage out of their drowsy, hypnotic sound - a confident instrumental performance this evening features delicate, arpeggiated melodies and fine, loose-limbed percussion and is only slightly detracted from by technical problems which are cruelly unforgiving of Richard Adams' current shortcomings as a frontman.

Sketches For Albinos is the performing alias of Reykjavik-based British expatriate Matthew Collings, whose set tonight at least gives enough of an indication of his strengths to encourage me to overlook his weaknesses and investigate him further. Aided and abetted by a gaggle of notable local guitarists - including members of Glissando and Solus Locus - he creates swells of electronic ambience which occasionally achieve a transcendent beauty but too often become over-extended and run out of steam.

Gareth S. Brown, meanwhile, is the man of the hour - tonight he's launching his sophomore LP 'The Gallows' and despite the synergistic relationship struck up between its atmospheric, neoclassical compositions and the surrealistic images playing out on the screen behind him - I suspect few in the audience can resist being drawn into their unsettling narratives - his music is also entirely freestanding.

Bracken is the moniker under which erstwhile Hood frontman Chris Adams now operates as composer, performer, remixer and DJ and to close out tonight's show it appears he's decided to showcase his immense talent in all four departments simultaneously. It's a remarkable, virtuoso display in which original material - seemingly all new and neglectful of last year's startlingly good We Know About The Need LP - rubs shoulders with full-on dubstep and earbleed techno in a thrillingly eclectic half hour of music delivered without a hint of arrogance or pretension. Bloody marvellous.

Greg Elliott

Mutineers / George & the Ghosts

@ Manchester Night & Day

The first Friday of the month usually sees the City of Manchester awash with revellers eager to whittle away their newly filled bank accounts, so it came as a surprise when the Night & Day café is less than half full, especially since headliners the Mutineers have been the subject of many a positive review over the past few months since they formed from the ashes of their previous bands.

First up though are Charlie & the Ghosts who definitely look the part, but don't necessarily sound it. It's hard to pinpoint any reference points for them as the guitars range from squalls of post-punk dissonance to yawn-inducing strumathons whilst the riot grrrrllll up front yelps and prances like a pixie. The songs weave in and out of each other with plenty of cohesion, mostly because they all seem to be written with the same bpm, leading this reviewer to head to the bar in search of some liquid refreshment.

And so to the main event... swathes of feedback and chorused guitars signal the entrance of the Mutineers whose polished take on 80s psychedelic guitar rock sounds much more muscular and confident in a live setting than it does on their, admittedly rushed, recordings. With a clear grasp of dynamics, the rhythm section build upon solid grooves which captivate the audience's attention whilst the guitars play out the sort of melancholic melodies so beloved of Echo & the Bunnymen and early Suede. Vocalist Michael Reed's restrained yet powerful voice is the perfect foil to the intricate musicianship playing out behind him, and on songs such as 'Stick Together' and 'The Auctioneer' you get the feeling that they are playing to nobody else in the room but you. With bands such as the Domino State and New Adventures sailing a similar ship of ambitious guitar rock, Mutineers are in fine company which marks a definite turning tide from the ramshackle rock & roll of the thousands of Libertines clones currently doing the rounds.

William Bradley

The Levellers / The Rascals / Elliot Minor / Tiny Dancers / Ten Bears / Little Tremors

@ Doncaster Live

A sizeable crowd braved the sleeting rain at Doncaster's Corn Exchange only to be subjected to one of the worst live performances this reviewer has had the misfortune to witness. Little Tremors have no engaging riffs, no hook lines and most definitely no melody.

Hippy rockers Ten Bears lifted spirits with a mish-mash of 60's and 70's pop blended with bluesy rock guitars to create a pleasantly audible fiesta before Tiny Dancers took to the stage to put a spring in the step of their Yorkshire neighbours. Stoking the fires with their brand of rhythmic power pop, a smattering of people leapt on the market stalls to fashion a Bez like impression that bared more resemblance to a monkey on a surfboard. Elliot Minor raised the bar even further, pumping their exuberant energy through the veins of excitable teenagers and working them into a sweaty lather. It was no surprise to hear Arctic echo's from Alex Turner associates The Rascals, but the lads from The Wirral held their own to deliver an accomplished performance packed with scintillating indie-rock and post-punk riffs tempered with a bass line that has the same steadying influence the Moon has on Earth.

By the time headliners The Levellers adorned the stage the teenage entourage had thinned and wandered off into the night, leaving the older generation to be treated to a musical masterpiece - in peace. Brighton's folk-punk revellers have a plethora of whip cracking tunes they could have treated us to, though chose not to stray too far from the more familiar notions by belting out crowd favourites 'Beautiful Day,' and 'One Way.' After regaling us with the mercurial 'River Flows,' the crowd were begging for more and were duly treated to a rousing blast of 'Liberty Song,' a fitting finale for a fitful fest.

Richard Oldale

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