Friday 04/04/08 Death Set, White Denim, Pivot @ The Barfly, Camden

It takes a lot to light up the grimy little Camden cubby hole that is the Barfly on a Friday, packed as it is with multitudes of attractive young people grasping for some weekend anarchism at the end of their five-day work-slog.  But when Australian three-piece, Pivot, take to the stage it’s surprising how quickly their music transforms the space.  In a uniform of chequered shirts, perhaps a tribute to their stint at SXSW, they unleash a steady stream of propulsive, spacious math-rock on the audience that blows the cobwebs from the rafters of the angular attic room. Vocally reticent, save for a kind of Thom Yorke background yelping that sounds primal and invocative; they employ synths and sound effects to create repetitious melody over typically driving and at times almost funky bass lines.  They shun rhythmic continuity in favour of sliding between tempo and time signature in pulsing shifts that are seamless and quite beautiful and seem completely engrossed in the job at hand, bent over guitars and rocking to the beat like manic woodpeckers.  A blend of Warp label mates Autechre and the post-punk new wave of Talking Heads, they occupy a busy little musical space on the shelf beside the likes of Do Make Say Think and Fridge in terms of the tools at their disposal, but the joy of Pivot, especially live, is that they are almost dance-floor sensible rather than detached.

White Denim managed to be not so much dance-floor sensible as almost thrusting themselves upon the expectant crowd.  Another hotly-tipped three piece, they were a feral successor to the warming minimalism of their tour-mates, opting instead for a ferocious brand of no-holes barred blue-collar rock reminiscent of Kings Of Leon, if KoL had serious aggression problems and were wired to the teeth on amphetamine.  Though the rosy-cheeked bassist smiled a little absurdly throughout and the lanky haired frontman thrashed out heavy guitar riffs over vocals that were often lost in the furore, it was Josh, the drummer that provided the centrifugal force.  He rarely sat still, like a caged dog behind his kit, leaping periodically forwards to yell the choruses with his teeth bared, sending his cymbals flying more than a few times.  Energetic was an understatement, but they did hold together admirably throughout, if not becoming a little one-dimensional after such a wonderfully understated opening set from Pivot.

Death Set hit the stage last like a bad case of stage three syphilis, you know, the bad kind.  Signed to Ninja Tunes, rather strangely for a punk outfit, they kept their chavved up screaming rock on continuous play by using a weird hip-hop backing that played even between songs, making the whole set feel like a horribly nightmarish medley in the ghetto.  The songs themselves were short, two minutes at a push, the logical reasoning for which is that it’s probably fatal to attempt longer screaming and sweating profusely, especially while wearing oversized baseball caps.  The audience thinned a bit as the twenty minutes drew on and it became apparent that Death Set cater for a special bunch, and there were a few out on Friday leaping about, but that this riotous two-piece should probably come with a health warning of some sort.