Friday 09/06/06 White Rose Movement, Humanzi @ Mean Fiddler, London

Frog may be one of the squelchier venues in London, but you've got to admit it’s an atmospheric little hovel.  Intrepidation has crept in to the sweltering venue at the imminent appearance of two tremendously hot bands.
 
Flavour-of-the-month Humanzi blast onto the stage with a crashing, trashy vibe, and so much hair they look like a Cousin It tribute band. Their confrontational stance makes Kasabian and The Pogues look, well, like Timmy Mallet. New release 'Diet Pills and Magazines' is a fantastic, tooth-spitting piece of violent rock, and has some great guitar work to boot. 'Fix the Cracks' has an echoing synth permeating the growling bass which gives the song personality through the noise. The band are Irish rockers as a pose to Irish poof-fairies (sorry Westlife), and are more in the Ian Brown, Led Zeppelin line of rock than U2's stretched whinings. As one of their lyrics says, "this is the shit so get used to it". This wild combination of Primal Scream and The Cure can't do anything else but grab your attention, and what's even more refreshing is that the tracks are good shit. However they do seem very angry - maybe some yoga would help?
 
Humanzi certainly did a good job at whipping the crowd up into a frenzy, and the crowd is as excited as Crazy Frog with a new single. This is something the much-improved White Rose Movement (WRM) are up for taking advantage of. The Epworth-blessed 'Love is a Number' with its Blondie-esque wailings at the chorus has a grinding rhythm which grabs everyone's attention. Vocalist Finn Vine zips around the stage like a possessed twiglet, his poses reeking of a sweaty desperation to get his songs out to the crowd. WRM's experimental take on vocals (their backing verges on playground-like yelling on occasions), almost takes a back seat to their electro-synth melodies. 'Girls in the Back' is sexy as hell with an undercurrent of funkiness punctuating the lyrics, and the style-conscious crowd love it. The band have evolved from the misguided stylings of a year or so ago, and are now more like Duran Duran's smutty little brother who taped over Saturday Swapshop with Belgium porn. Trashy and greasy, 'eighties influenced without being a parable, WRM have evolved and become much better at carrying a live show. Vine taunts the front row with his microphone stand, and his acrobatic leaps that look like he might crash into them at any second.
 
Anything so stylised always raises questions over the integrity of melody, but WRM have got some good tunes ready to go. Go get involved in the sweat - you know you want to.