Chrome Hoof The Garage, London 21/10/10
4/5
By: Liane Escorza
For the love of… Chrome Hoof, I cannot understand how this band is not headlining tonight. Festival line-up or not, this is not a way of doing things right. Anything else happening afterwards is a total mediocrity, because this is a band of performers thousands of stratospheres ahead of any other.
And now that I’m off on one, let me just tell you that this venue isn’t the type they should be playing in either. This stuff is for theatres. The Garage’s design is based on American beer drinking halls with light wooden floor planks drenched in cheap lager and traces of muddy footsteps, and eye-straining screens all over the place promoting an energy drink instead of the bands in question. And the sound tonight is appalling. It’s loud, but fuzzy and cavern-like, as if the sound waves whirled around the band, enveloping them into a mega bubble that will not burst and expand as it should outwards and towards the crowd.
But venue and billing grudges aside, Chrome Hoof are absolutely supreme. Their mix of frenetic funk and electro beats with heavy riffs of metallic guitar, rusty shrieking violins, diva moves from its lady leader (let’s make it clear, she is one hell of a lady), the sexy sax and trumpets and the shiny hood coats of the eleven members –surely a modern goth adaptation of the costumes by The Supremes?– creates a musical Molotov cocktail that is at once electrifying, terrifying, and amazing.
From the astonishing ‘Crystalline’ with its massive bass, synths and incredibly complex beats intertwined with beautiful, delicate violins (which are of course then suddenly stomped and crashed by Lola Olafisoye’s roar), to ‘Sea Hornet’, a tune that could be used as a future James Bond theme (when we all live on the moon, that is) Chrome Hoof are full to the brim with originality. This is hardcore entertainment married with achingly tight musicianship, and it shows conclusively that bands can still be attractive and successful while avoiding any specific genre identification. Truly, they’re paradise amidst the current dross of play-it-safe boredom.
Artists in this article: Chrome Hoof
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