By Reviewed by George Palathingal
BAND OF SKULLS
Factory Theatre, July 27
SOUTHAMPTON, on England's south coast, doesn't have much form when it comes to bad-arse rock'n'roll. Indeed, perhaps the city's most famous musical offspring are polite R&B chap Craig David and the drummer from those nice fellows in Coldplay.
Band Of Skulls ... bone-crushingly big and bluesy sounds rock the house.
Welcome, then, Band of Skulls: a long-haired, black-clad, alt-rock three-piece with steel in its riffs and thunder in its beats. The band has got the blues, too, a fact that made some dismiss its 2009 debut, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey, as a White Stripes knock-off. But this year's more polished and varied follow-up, Sweet Sour, showed there was more to them than that.
On stage is where it should all come together, but after the promising opening of the current album's title track - all guitar heroics and a dirty Zeppelin groove - it takes a little while to happen. That's down to song choice because you can't fault the scintillating playing of guitarist Russell Marsden, the satisfyingly beefy bass lines of Emma Richardson, their coolly shared vocals (they take turns to lead and the other often provides effective back-up harmonies), or the crunching drums of Matt Hayward.
Once they get the filler material out of the way - with respect to occasional peaks such as the anthemic Bruises - the trio hit their stride. Marsden even acknowledges the home stretch with the words ''Let's have some fun'' as Hollywood Bowl, with its riff-and-response routine, leads into the defiant strut of I Know What I Am and the crash and boogie of You Aren't Pretty But You Got It Going On.
Despite its technical expertise, Band of Skulls doesn't lock itself into its album versions; the way the band temporarily slows down tempos mid-song for dramatic effect is an especially powerful trick when done as well as this well-practised unit do it. And when Marsden takes on a guitar solo, he impresses, mercifully, without going over the top.
The encore could have successfully finished with the snarling, swaggering Devil Takes Care of His Own but no one seemed to complain when the band followed it with Impossible. By the end, I suppose Band of Skulls had earned that right.