CityLife

The Old Romantic Killer Band

I DON'T care who you are or what you were doing. If you weren’t at The Roadhouse last night for The Old Romantic Killer Band then you’ve missed out big-time – yet again.

I don’t even care if you’ve bought, listened or made love to the record, The Swan With Two Necks, because, quite simply, If you go on living and don’t experience TORKB playing live then there’s no point keeping those rubbery, wax-clodden, cauliflower ears on either side of your head. Cut ‘em off.

Usually separated by those familiar earthy peaks we call the Pennines, live, Leeds-based Harry and Manchester-based Greg come together like some kind of blues-fuelled dirty bomb, detonating on stage.

It’s 20-ish minutes of distorted reverb-heavy guitar, thrashing drums and wounded Buckley-like vocals, before somebody has to hose all those annihilated faces from the floor into the drains.

Want to know exactly how hard Greg hits the drums? Drive your car into a concrete wall at 150mph.

Tracks like ‘Trouble Causer,’ ‘Lover’s Pass’ and ‘Things to Come,’ that sound ace on record, literally punch you in face with how good they are live.

Post-gig, it’s easy to imagine that Johns was pulled, fully formed, from the muddy river basin of the Mississippi or that at the very least, he spends his spare time in a trailer, swigging Jack Daniels and eating fatback and beans.

He doesn’t, but that changes nothing. TORKB are still one of the strongest, most original and most memorable acts around at the moment.

Don’t agree? - You’re wrong.

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