THE 100 CLUB, OCTOBER 2015
Girls Names are not a band who like to rest on their musical laurels and their recently released album “Arms around a vision” is testament to this. Even darker than their previous releases it signifies yet another shift in aesthetic for the post-punk outfit and provides more of a raw and unpolished sound than 2013’s acclaimed “The New Life”.
Oxford Street’s legendary punk venue The 100 Club seemed like a fitting setting for Monday night’s London show, their penultimate gig before embarking on a month long European tour. The Belfast band taking to the stage and launching into new song “A hunger artist”. A jagged guitar intro rings out of the speakers before combining with a pounding bass and motorik drum beat to create a tempo which doesn’t cease for the whole set. The performance has a real sense of urgency with guitarist Phillip Quin erratically jerking himself and his instrument around on stage, contrasting with singer Cathal Cully who stoically delivers lyrics with a fixed stare through the back of the audience.
The set is made almost entirely up of new material with the exception of Hypnotic Regression, which takes on a similar intensity as the new material in the live set. Layered synths and heavy distortion merge together on tracks to create a wall of sound only broken by the atmospheric lyrics of Cully.
New album opener “Reticence” merges straight into “Zero Tryptych”, released as a standalone 11 minute single earlier this year and a notable highlight of the set. They close the set with “I want you”, a dark and gloomy crescendo which fades away as the band leave the stage with their instruments still ringing out into the night.
Photos by Andreia Lemos