Schnooking down Shoreditch cranny to a hollowed-out factory (the seventh in an ambiguous and indeterminate series of umpteen), the whiff of wet paint and freshly splattered veneer lingers in the frostbiting air. Raffle tickets serve as prerequisite bar currency; The Joy Formidable as warmth. Now accustomed to gargantuan venues and occasional stadia in support of anyone and everyone from agitated, if ageing compatriots the Manic Street Preachers, to Grohl's groggy Foo Fighters, to Paul McCartney and having packed out the inordinately branded HMV Forum last time they swung by, tonight is comparatively intimate. It's no front room, and a fireplace would aid in The Joy Formidable's unremitting cockle warming yet the absence of advert is both commendable and welcome in an age in which every bat of the eyelid is battered back with intrusive endorsements and excruciating tag lines. Similarly in a musical climate centred all too often on aesthetics, Ritzy Bryan, Rhydian Dafydd and Matt Thomas counteract clichés and contemporary propensities to construct a sound that, although now well-worn in places (a typically euphoric Austere and quintessentially crushing Cradle retain every ounce of seething urgency), never sounds worn out.
Similarly, the trio continue to demonstrate visceral passion and brooding intensity whilst simultaneously elucidating great belief and buoyancy in the emotive, distortion-drenched slabs they continue to hack at: A Heavy Abacus bleeds undiluted, sanguine triumph; the hefty crunch of The Magnifying Glass comes across as clamourously brittle as ever; and Bryan's eyes turn a piercing shade of demonic as they perforate curtains of sharpened fringe on a thoroughly exhausting The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie. Twilight take Endtapes lacks a little bite however, whilst Anemone stamps out its initially engrossing sparsity in knowingly howl-along eventual excess. Nonetheless the ever-anthemic Whirring ensures tonight's run-in proves suitably climactic as floored cans of Carlsberg are trampled into the still-setting concrete underfoot and on that note (E major) we depart, trudging off into a thick mist of condensation, satisfaction, and omnipresent advertisement.
