Memoryhouse: I liked them so much I waved goodbye

I went to see Memoryhouse at the Hope on Sunday (rescheduled from Juine at the Freebutt). This was one of those gigs where I wasn't really expecting great things, just a very pleasant experience; but I massively understimated Memoryhouse! All three of them looked pretty cool up there - Adrian Vieni, the live bassist/guitarist should be a permanent fixture. He's got a good face! Mo reimportantly, his guitar tones are awesome too, really full and dense and he's got some fine control over his fx pedals, constantly warping the tone and texture to add extra rhythm and detail as a sumptuous backdrop to Evan's more trebly guitars. Denise actually looked pretty fierce, despite noncahalently firing off barrages of samples from her beatbox. Her vocal's were as rounded and soft as they are on record, no live harshness here, a really smooth voice that wasn't overwhelmed by the wall of noise the two boys were building up behind her, contrasting and complementing in equally effective measure. I was expecting gentle and dreamy but this was much closer to the roar of My Bloody Valentine than I had anticipated; much more shoegaze than chillwave it was a propulsive, energetic show with a New Order beat machined momentum that pushed through into the slower tracks, which seemed faster, grander and more aggressive than on record; took me a couple of bars of singing to realise it was Lately and not something new.

So yeah, really great. I liked them so much I actually waved goodbye.