One of the Fishrider Records stable out of Dunedin, Death & The Maiden are definitely my favourite band from a very strong roster, with both their albums being very strong and the latest, "Wisteria", is perhaps my favourite NZ record of 2018. So I was pretty keen to go see them live.
They had enlisted 3 other bands to support them, a couple of Christchurch groups and one from Wellington.
First up was not actually a band but local artist, Motte, whom I have seen several times lately and who released a great LP last year,. that I really like. Motte first played one of her newer pieces where she uses some heavy deep electronic pulses to back her looped violin pieces. I was pleased to see she had got her voice back, after, I believe, she was not able to sing for a period due to health reasons and she preformed my favourite song from her album.
Next Motte, also played in the next act, The Ben Woods Group, where she played keys and violin. I had seen The Ben Woods Group recently at one of the Melted Ice Cream gigs a couple of weeks earlier, their lofi droney shoegaze is ok but not not overall really inspiring, but I don't mind watching their set. Their best song is the one they have on the Melted Ice Cream sampler CD and is much more poppy and brighter than the rest of their music, I really like it.
Plains are from Wellington and I had never heard of this three piece band. They played a sort of post rock kind of music with vocals and they sounded cleaner and clearer through the Space Academy PA and they got off to a great start with a great song that had stops and timing changes and I really was impressed and their next song was quite strong also, although the rest of their set did plod on a bit with their songs sounding all similar. They did not have a very strong singer either which is a common occurrence with many of the local amateur bands.
Death & The Maiden are also a three peice with guitar, bass and electronics and the bass player on lead vocals. I thought the soundman struggled to get the sound right for this band as the bass was massively distorted and the guitar slightly lower in the mix than perhaps it should have been and it was bloody loud, also the vocals were a little hard to make out. The band on record are subtle and dark and beautiful but live is quite different but just as good. Sound issued apart, I thought they were fantastic, and knowing most of the songs they played as well as I do, I was almost dancing to the groove and just totally enjoyed their set as much ans anything I had seen recently, and there was some tough competition. The young lady on guitar was very impressive and I thought her playing was even better than on the records and it is really nice on them. A most impressive gig.
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