Three Trapped Tigers
Night & Day, Manchester
23/05/2011

It used to be like this all the time at Manchester’s Night & Day Café; a good-sized and exuberantly-natured crowd packed into its dark tunnel of a confine, sipping on European beers whilst one of our country’s finer leftfield bands propelled itself through what for some proved a revelatory set. While the reasons for this once great venue’s erosion as the city’s premier mid-level venue are various (the Deaf Institute’s opening among them) tonight there’s a warm familiarity to it, a huge testament to Three Trapped Tigers’ performance.

Where they first emerged as frowning math-rock purveyors, EPs released more as showcases for their dazzling technical ability above any actual songs, new album ‘Route On Or Die’ has proved that the trio are more than capable of providing concise statements of their sound. Opener ‘Cramm’ is about as convoluted as the new material gets this evening, guitar and synth running up spiral staircases before crashing abruptly earthwards, from then on the set flows seamlessly, even older tracks like ‘6’ slotting in amongst their newer forthright leanings.

Much of this coherence is down to the metronome percussion of Adam Betts. A man in the John Stanier and Damon Che class of syncopated math-rock drummers, his jerking limbs are a constant blur of weaving patterns in front of his nodding head; they urge the set forward rather than passively joining in any sort of virtuoso masturbation. The trio work as a unit though, and where songs like ‘Noise Trade’ at times capture the raw spirit of 90s groups like Don Caballero, they’ve also a futuristic feel, gleaming electronics chiming in amongst the six-strings. As closer ‘Reset’ crashes around the room there’s a palpable sense that those in attendance are witnessing a band very much in the ascendancy.

Simon Jay Catling