Live Review: NO ZU, Usurper Of Modern Medicine, Kashikoi

There was plenty to look forward to with tonight’s city appearance from NO ZU, fresh from having sold out Mojo’s in Fremantle the previous night and riding high on the recent release of their excellent Afterlife album. A dark, slightly twisted album that welded percussive beats, funky grooves and chanted vocals, it gave the promise of a live show — witnessed previously at the Camp Doogs festival — that could quite easily become totally unhinged.

Local band Usurper Of Modern Medicine thrust a dark vibe into the night with their driving, hypnotic beats almost infecting the crowd with some sense of imminent doom. They rolled through their set flawlessly and fashioned an atmosphere that was clearly going to be at odds with what was to come, but were received warmly nonetheless. This is a band that has crafted its sound over a number of years and tonight they showed the grind has been worth it — they are confident, skilled and command undivided attention.

By the time eight-piece headliners NO ZU made it on stage, the rather nefarious atmosphere that had been created had been well and truly displaced by something altogether more raucous, and from the moment the first note was struck it didn’t abate. NO ZU were a different proposition entirely, and the crowd responded with unbridled enthusiasm. In the midst of such chaos it can be easy to overlook the qualities of the band that are faced with it — they become almost secondary — but NO ZU is so good they simply override it. Tracks like Raw Vis Vision were performed flawlessly, and the band showcased their talent by cohesively bringing together a number of individual parts. On stage they are committed to whipping the audience into a thriving, dancing mess, but they also have innate attention to detail and their percussion, brass and synth ingredients amount to one incredible whole.