A Skylit Drive/I Set My Friends On Fire/Woe Is Me/Sleeping With Sirens
Electric Ballroom, London
29/09/2011

With four up-and-coming bands on one bill, the room is packed with more haircuts and dodgy neck tattoos than you can count. Sleeping With Sirens prove there’s more to Orlando than Mickey Mouse, with hefty melodies a plenty on the likes of ‘If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn’ but the vocals sometimes stray into the dangerous side of whiny, bordering on saccharine at times.

Woe Is Me certainly win in the style stakes, resplendent in waistcoats and ties, but it smacks of style over substance when Katy Perry‘s ‘Hot N Cold’ serves as the highlight of your set. I Set My Friends On Fire certainly raise a few eyebrows with controversial between song banter, with such gems as “who likes swallowing? Who has a tight vagina? If you kept your hand down you’re a loose slut!” (and that’s just the printable quotes…) suggesting that they spend a lot of time in the company of ladies in short dresses and clear stripper heels with a penchant for poles, and the response is a lot of shouts to do one.

A Skylit Drive deliver the most polished performance of the night, with faultless energy throughout the likes of ‘Ex Marks The Spot’ and ‘Tempt Me, Temptation’, hitting the right balance of melody and screaming, without the sugar-coating of SWS or the undecipherable roaring of ISMFOF. Admittedly there is a hell of a lot of posing with a lot of ‘dramatic’ back lighting added in, making it feel like every movement is a photo opportunity, but we can forgive a few shapes being thrown when they have songs like ‘Too Little Too Late’ to back it up.

Jen Thomas