Live Review: Glass Animals

Amid a constant stream of tropical buzzing and chirping permeating the hot and humid belly of The Hi-Fi, Glass Animals, on a stage decked with jungle foliage and illuminated in a deep emerald glow, brought their wild side to Sydney.

Opening with the sultry Black Mambo, the boys jumped headfirst into one of the smoothest, coolest sets in recent memory. Lead singer Dave Bayley became all sorts of self-possessed as he wriggled and jived through the hypnotically chill track Psylla and ricocheted through the heavy rumblings of Exxus.

There is such an animalistic element to their show, which works considering their namesake, and an overriding sense of being in the wild when watching them perform. The slick, snake-like slithering through last year’s hit Gooey, to the repetitious tribal beats cascading through the cool but creepy Wyrd all helped create a very enigmatic performance.

In all their own songs as well as their cover of Kanye West’s Love Lockdown, Bayley’s voice throughout the night was pitch-perfect and hypnotizing. On their record Zaba you could be fooled into thinking Bayley’s vocals had been buried underneath layers of production but he is actually just that good.

Possibly the most impressive thing about Glass Animals was their ability to holster such animalistic spirits within one song only to retain a sense of fragility in the next. The slower, sultriness of Cocoa Hooves or even the multi-layered percussion intro to closing hit Pools all revealed impressive focus and control for a group of boys also happy to cut loose on stage. Their balance between wild sets and delicate production, to be on the verge of letting go only to successfully reign it all back in, their ‘glass-like’ fragility to their wild ‘animal’ instincts, that’s what made their set and indeed makes their music just so damn captivating.