Live Review: Gignition

With a name like that, Big Girls Blouse delivered a brand of clean-cut pop tracks. Dressed in matching white shirts, all clean-shaven and with high-end bouncy drum beats, the four-piece engaged a home audience with their catchy choruses and tight leads. Hard to criticise, they all delivered exactly what they promised, to genre-specific perfection.

Mountain Giant stripped it back. One man on drums, the other on guitar and vox box, creating a chord crunching, octave sliding rock'n'roll good time. While delivering entertainment, and solid drum rolls, they relied too much on pedal effects and vocal distortion to give them variety, over alternating chord progressions and lyrical stylings.

Changing to a folk tune, The Brothers Duke rooted their entire sound in melody, everything designed to treat that flow. The band as a whole remained present but unobtrusive, the guitar especially used for atmosphere over any assertion, and the drums ever-consistent in beat. All this served, however, to allow for the great vocal range, beautiful piano and violin playing to lilt and lift above the sound and craft the emotional heart of the music.

Railway Bell presented what I can only describe as old Americana music with a modern polish. From the potbelly hat and verbal cadence of the singer, to the lap-steel guitar on side, the country feel is undeniable. However, the singer, working alongside the enticing rolls and backing-vocals of the drummer, provided an engaging mix to the songs, combing themes of summer allure and heartbroken revelry.

September Sun left a welcome hard-rock taste in the mouth at the finish of the night. Providing high energy, great riffs and banter, it was a wall of noise with a deliciously dirty bottom end. While the guitar didn't lift above the wall, the drums provided the flourish to give emotion, as well as propulsion, to the music, with the vocals staying high and clean even as they howled out till the close of the venue.