Rattail, on the other hand, was all about making strange noises. The DJ sampled insistent but discordant beats while the guitarist played noisy chords. In between howling out simple lyrics, the female singer added growls and yips. It was actually musically interesting. Unfortunately, in the first few songs, she sang deliberately off-key at times. Combined with the odd music, this drove most of the audience out of small venue, leaving only a handful of people standing around.
They came back for ALX. Two weeks ago, this band was testing out their material at the Horseshoe. But this was their official debut show. Fronted by Allie Hughes, with Kelly McMichael (Rouge) and Maddy Wilde (ex Spiral Beach) on keys and vocals, drummer Kieran Adams and synth programmer Damian Taylor, ALX re-invents Hughes' old material as more dance and pop. Nevertheless, she opened with a slow number, just her on the keyboard, reminiscent of her prior incarnations. The rest of the show was all dance, with synth bass, metronomic drums, and waa-waa chords.
Aesthetically, they were pulling out the sexy. The singers were all dressed in black with red eye make-up. Allie wore an over-sized satin shirt as a dress, short enough to reveal flashes of a stocking and garter combo. Kelly had on a tight velvet mid-knee number with some vaguely Asian ideograms inscribed. Maddy sported a decidedly school-marm-ish outfit, but her hair was done up in a sexy bed-head, similar to her Spiral Beach wild child (ya, bad pun) look.
Watching the show, I thought this sound might be good for Hughes. She has a big voice and writes confessional lyrics. But there has always been something hermetic with her singing, masked by her theatricality. Dance-pop, with its impersonal electronica, could be a better fit.
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