Live Review: School Of Seven Bells - The Hi-Fi Bar

It's a hipster student crowd that sits, scattered all over the Hi-Fi's lower section floor. Apart from this making it particularly challenging for Little Scout to feed off as they glance at this audience and try to engage, as if you want stains on the arse area of your clothes comprised of dirt from punters' boots and sticky liquid from spilled drinks? As such, the Brisbane four-piece comes across all withdrawn (not entirely their fault) and during one song one of the female vocalists actually sounds like a poltergeist.       

During the set changeover, All Out Of Love by Air Supply pumps so loudly from the venue sound system that we suspect it's a School Of Seven Bells intro tape. It's not. As guitarist Benjamin Curtis tunes his axe onstage, a fan approaches. She is received warmly and welcomed with a handshake. As soon as they hit the stage, the NYC duo that becomes a quartet for live purposes captivates. They obviously had a band meeting to decide on an all-black stage uniform, which the girls accessorise with a ridiculous amount of gold bling. Remarkably, their sound actually does conjure images of seven bells a-ringing (plus drums). Mallet drumming provides a stirring undercurrent. Three circular areas on the back curtain are decorated by swirling projections and SVIIB certainly know what they're doing compositionally.

After four or five danceable tracks, during which most stamp the heel of one foot into the floor to the beat, a couple of zed-worthy numbers mess with the momentum. What School Of Seven Bells bring live is more jagged and industrial than on record, while maintaining that trademark mesmeric quality. Fluttering keys call to mind Der Dritte Raum's Hale Bop. This scribe prefers their rave-inspired shit that makes you wish you'd double-dropped before the show. That fact makes it a bit, 'Thank God for the Apple Mac up there onstage,' but at the same time there's no denying School Of Seven Bells are very classy and tailormade for slow-build festival sets. There are so many sounds coming from the stage that my plus one is sus about how much of it is actually being produced live. Cog-sunflower visuals circle on the back curtain heightening the mechanical-yet-beautiful nature of this music.

The small crowd in attendance tonight express much enthusiasm through applause and the two-song encore inspires some hippies in the front couple of rows to interpretive dance with abandon.