Live Review: This Will Destroy You, Meniscus, Hazards Of Swimming Naked

Hazards Of Swimming Naked have a pop sensibility that’s unusual for the post-rock genre: their melodies are instantly recognisable and surprisingly catchy. Fans of the band would be familiar with most of the set tonight, but despite a little bit of looseness in some of the transitions (the national tour perhaps starting to take its toll), the band continues to impress and they’re opening the show at a standard many headliners struggle to hit.

Although their recordings rely on atmospherics and gentle electronics, Meniscus are the heaviest act on the bill tonight. Live, those electronics fade into the background, while intense drumming and the clever use of layered guitar barely allow the audience a moment to breathe, making it hard to believe there are only three people on stage. Still, it’s Alison Kerjean, on bass, who leaves the biggest impression, providing a deep, pulsing tone that ties the complexity of the drums and guitar together and keeping the audience raptly nodding along.

More than perhaps any other band in the genre, This Will Destroy You make use of deliberately slow-burning builds that transition, almost imperceptibly, from gentle ambience into wall-shaking crescendos. And with each track fading into the next (this is, after-all, post-rock: audience interaction would just be confusing), the set feels like an ocean of noise, gentle waves to roiling waters and back again. The band look like they’ve added even more pedals to their boards since their last tour and keyboards make an appearance as well, lending a greater tonal variation to proceedings. 

It takes the first two tracks for the sound tech to get the mix right (which means a rather disappointing version of A Three-Legged Workhorse, unfortunately), but after that, everything settles and the music is beautiful, measured. And once the peak of Communal Blood arrives, at about the half-way mark, the set never relents. Last time they were in town, they were too quiet to be completely immersive, but there’s no problem here tonight and so the hypnotic ambience rolls over and captures the audience. There’s no stage-show to speak of, and the projections that accompany the band are neither here nor there, but with music this good, the performance is irrelevant; better to close your eyes and let the sound wash over you.