Textures
took their first album ‘Polars’ on
the road this year to the delight of fans. In a show full of humour and Mayones
guitars, they ploughed through a set list full of Djenty goodness.
First,
a little story, the singer of Textures is
an absolute joker. I was hanging out at the bar with a friend, when I look over
to the merch desk and there is this dude talking to the merch guy who looks
incredibly like the singer of Textures. I turn to my friend and ask if I could
use his phone to record a 5 minute interview before their set as my phone was
out of battery. I then walk up to this dude and go 'Hey man, are you the singer
of Textures?' the dude goes 'nah man'. I say 'oh sorry, you look incredibly
like him'.
I
walk away feeling slightly awkward, me and my friend make lots of jokes about
how it was actually the singer and he just didn't want to be bothered or it was
a member of another band or it was just some random dude.
Fast forward to the end of Textures set, the singer starts giving his usual 'hey if you want to come chat or take a picture we'll be hanging round the merch desk after the show... Oh and that dude who came up to the merch desk and asked if I was the singer... Yeh, that was me'. He then points me out in the crowd and says 'sorry dude, come take a picture and hang out afterwards'. I’m standing there shouting "YOU MOTHERFUCKER". After the set he came into the crowd and we had a little chat, he apologised and probably felt a bit silly as I told him I was reviewing the show and just wanted a quick 5 minutes to put a little interview before the review. Hugs were exchanged and all was well.
Apart
from that hilarious incident the show was great. The show was in two parts.
First off they played ‘Polars all the way through, finishing up with the epic
nearly 20 minute title track before moving on to a kind of fan favourites set
of their best known tracks. Performance wise they didn’t miss a beat and the
singer has absolutely got his screaming and singing technique down. They had a
tremendous amount of energy, throwing themselves around with plenty of
synchronised headbanging (real Meshuggah style stuff).
The
sound was definitely set up for the more ballady type stuff and kind of lacked
when it meant the most. The mid heavy tones of the guitars mudded up
horrendously at points and the left and right balance just felt off. When they
played slow it sounded fine, so the polyrhythmic djenty stuff sounded great
once you had given your ears a bit of time to adjust. If you don’t know, a lot
of the note tonality in music is carried in the mid frequencies, overcrowding
this frequency range can completely destroy a set, far worse than a performance
that is really bassy or heavy in the high frequencies.
I
think If I was to see Textures again it would have to be in a bigger venue with
a better sound system. I just don’t think the sound they go for was very suited
for a small venue like The Garage. Thanks for reading y’all!
Words by: Asher G.
Alexander
