London Camden Falcon
Sometimes things go so horribly wrong all you can do is give up the ghost, smash the template and start again. For the remaining members of Levitation - who dissolved in the early-'90s under a blanket of chaos and chemicals after their singer walked out in the middle of a gig - the only way forward was to give in to gravity, regroup as Dark Star, and step out onto otherworldly ground.
The Dark Star soundscape is as vast and dark as an ocean at night, where slippery dance grooves coast easily alongside scathing metal riffs and shoegazy guitar musings wash through throbbing drum loops. As an elegant statement of their menacing intent, single 'Graceadelica' couldn't be more perfect. Folding in on itself with claustrophobic vocals and dense liquid loops, it suddenly changes tack, re-inflating its lungs with dizzy electronica and screaming to the skies.
Think Spiritualized, Pink Floyd and Fugazi playing simultaneously, only stranger and more noisy. As they reverberate with bloops of Theremin and loose-limbed psychedelia, a multitude of disparate sounds clamour for attention within each murderously coy song. This is barbed velvet, seductively violent, beautiful and ugly.
Even vocalist
Bic Hayes, black-clad and elfin behind a mic-stand entwined with
fairy lights, looks surprised at his band's intensity.
"Weird, huh?" he grins, shyly, after the shuddering
schizophrenia of 'The Crow Song' ricochets into silence.
Considering he may have just pioneered danceable psychedelic
electro-goth-metal, weird is too modest a word.
April Long