Live Review: High Tension, Mere Women, MSV BCP, Narrow Lands

Variety is the spice of life, so they say. This is true of many things, including concerts. Within a crowded line-up there should be well-defined connections, but variation can be a secret weapon. Case in point: Saturday's High Tension album launch.

All four bands collectively fronted with a pitch-black mean streak. They all pushed their guitars to their capacities within their chosen form. They all pulsed and sweated and gave sterling performances. None of them however would sit next to each other in a record store (a well organised one), category-wise, and that gave the night an edge. The constant shift in tone and approach between one band and the next made the night exciting, and more than the sum of its parts.

Both MSV BCP and Narrow Lands fool around with doom sounds, but where MSV heaped on the droning sludge, Narrow Lands' caustic, burning vitriol brought it to the boil. Both bands sounded muscular and primal, but we'd give it to Narrow Lands in a pinch just for their energy.

Mere Women (such a great name) turned a sharp corner and their sharply hewn goth pop felt like a shot of gin as a palate cleanser. The fragile urgency of Our Street and Home kept the tension simmering, while their crystalline skeletal arrangements snuck some sly aestheticism into an evening dominated by brute force.

High Tension came out swinging. Given it was Ash Pegram's last show with them (booo!) it was good to see everyone get loose. Bodies cartwheeled over the audience, the band kept it taut and mean and the merciless riffing sounded perfect in the small room (in stark contrast to last week's disappointing Black Cobra debacle). There's a real sense of comradery and fun that High Tension distils and channels through Karina Utomo, their banshee-cum-frontwoman, and her presence was, as always, fucking electric.