Live Review: Crime & The City Solution, Sleepy Sun & Pearls

Despite a virtually empty venue, opening three-piece Pearls took to the stage with gusto, belting out their own brand of post-punk, noise-popping goodness. The relative newcomers to the scene strummed through a brief set of dreamy, noisy tunes. Droning male vocals were undercut with, seemingly noise-pop essential, gorgeous female vocals. The band recalled Danish noise poppers The Raveonettes more than once and are surely worth keeping an eye on.

Ostensibly touring on the back of their great third LP, Californian psychedelic rock fivesome Sleepy Sun sauntered on stage next. With tunes pulled from Spine Hits and their back catalogue, vocalist and harmonica player Bret Constantino proved to be the ideal charismatic charmer for the group's sound. Channelling older psychedelic rock and Doors-influenced groove more obviously than most bands of their kind, the band still knew when to kick out the jams and let a noise section build itself into oblivion. Despite the songs sounding relatively unchanged from the record, Sleepy Sun showed themselves to most definitely be a live act.

After a long wait, Crime & The City Solution made their way on stage. Suitable considering the noisy openers, the group dove into its hard-rocking The Bride Ship and proceeded through note-perfect renditions of their greatest hits catalogue. Never a group to stay in one sound, the audience was taken from noisy rock to country swagger to narrative explorations of loose, free jazz-influenced rock. Never the most immediate of bands, Crime still present an incredible and powerful live show. Always one of the more underrated and under-acknowledged bands from the '80s post-punk era, it was rewarding (for the band and fans alike) to get the six-piece to show off the reason they're as quietly brilliant as only they are.