The Rapture - London Barfly @ Monarch - 11/7/02
4/5
By: Toby L
New York. Four cool-looking guys. Rock 'n' roll. Sometimes, the ingredients to producing the next 'flavour of the month' are quite simple.
But, you know, The Rapture deserve far more than the mere status of 'flavour of the month'. Their fleshy brand of thrashy, trashy, sexy disco-punk marks, yet again, a mightily necessary musical-adaption and origination for recent times. What do they sound like? A tough one, but imagine traces of Television's sleek guitar dosed with Blondie's drum 'n' bass groove, topped off by the band's own NYC-'Westside Story' presentation of plain, preppie-boy white, or striped T-shirts and wild, dark hair.
Currently garnering the same sort of praise and hyperbole in the UK which has greeted many recent US successes, The Rapture tonight present forth their calamity-stricken collision of noise - which, incidentally, makes for compelling viewing - to the steamy busyness of the London Monarch. Opening moodily, their pouts are only out-styled with a pop-sensibility, yet simultaneous rough edge, which put many of their contemporaries to shame, the audience notably responding via a confusion of dance-moshing and ecstatic cheers during and after every number.
Set-wise, most notable of all is the gloomy meanderings of 'House Of Jealous Lovers', though there's plenty more besides to suggest that next to anything is capable, with the added bonus of a percussionist and saxophonist supplementing the frantic, desperate vocals and guitar of Luke Jenner, not to mention the rhythm-section of the stunningly-named Vico Roccoforte on drums and bassist Matt Safer - which could possibly be the strongest you'll see or hear all year 'round. And, as they spiral towards the close of the set and the quartet walks off, a momentary drop of their otherwise consistent attitude is noticeable, Jenner grinning proudly at performing a show whose on-stage energy was greeted with a similar return from the newly-gained fans present.
Competence mixed with twisted, dark slickness, The Rapture mark a time-warp back to the sexiness of the 70s, following an urgent pit-stop at the innovative forward-thinking of the 21st Century - and it's a special sight to behold.
Artists in this article: The Rapture
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