Cold Cave once proclaimed Heaven to be full. Tonight, ahead of the veritably humongous homecoming of post-dubstep's finest,
Mount Kimbie, its subterraneous caverns are bulging to bursting point. Their seminal debut,
Crooks & Lovers, isn't exactly the sort of record that thrives in HMV-endorsed venues, far better suited to clichés of deserted night bus window gazing. Not that the musical contents are to be considered in any way contrived. It's just that Heaven is, contextually, fucking enormous and Dominic Maker and Kai Campos are, in reality, a comparatively small band. Yet the manner in which they command the hundreds-strong throng as warbles and ambient glitches morph into the likes of an effervescent Carbonated and murky Ruby is testament to their relentless touring of the past twelve-or-so months. Even more awe-inducing of course is the fact that the record, as Kai Campos quite rightly states, only clocks in at 35 minutes. Consequently, they quite almost literally have no further material to piece together to form an encore. Which is perhaps the only gripe with an otherwise irrefutably impeccable set. Despite the organicity provided by a sole cello in the genetic make-up of support act
CREEP, Laurens Flax and Dillard do, to all extensive purposes, cower behind MacBooks, bobbing away to albeit majestically crafted doom pop. Campos and Maker undulate at altogether different wavelengths to many a contemporary however, as the stage is littered with bits and bobs of drumkit, drumpads, synths and a guitar used to devastating effect on a rejuvenated Maybes, Maker delivering superlative denouement vox entangled in unintelligible vocal samples to an already glorious, if pseudo-despondent track. The simmering Would Know meanwhile becomes altogether more euphoric in the sweltering microclimate that Heaven has cultivated, a sea of bobbing craniums splattered with expressions of unadulterated joy and a smidgen of pride. The boys done good. No, brilliantly, to which a dumbstriking Before I Move Off attests, a greatest hit of sorts that continues to mature to vintage with every notch incremented on the iTunes Play Count. Live however, its globule-like guitars that patter around UKG undertones astound, plinking and plonking like raindrops on azure infinity pools, pools that you can't help but dive into, and drown within.
