HTRK
Relentless Garage, London
24/10/2011

Despite the walls of wailing, screeching guitar, there remains something very clean, if not clinical and detached about the music of HTRK. It has a certain cold intimacy to it, like listening to a psychiatric patient matter of factly reading aloud a harrowing medical history, or being groped by Edward Cullen. If it ever seems hard and indifferent it’s only because it has formed a callous over its most tender parts.

Openers Tropic Of Cancer get it half right. Destined for brighter days, their set contains a treasure trove of barely repressed potential. Yet they rarely seem overtly involved in proceedings, somehow coming across as more timid than taciturn. HTRK too, have their moments of fallibility but they are fleeting, and all too quickly banished; Jonnine Standish’s sneer masks any barely perceptible discomfort. Armed with subs that ripple the ground, it is during ‘Eat Your Heart’ that the dub-tinged undercarriage really gives way to full on industrial menace, making the floor grumble. And by the time ‘Poison’ looms into view it’s clear that band electrician Nigel Yang is 100% set on at least giving you tinnitus.

More than most, HTRK’s sound is art that needs a proper frame – muddy sound-systems simply will not do. Thankfully tonight sees the troops well equipped, each song cutting its own oppressive swathe. Even though much of the finale‘Fascinator’ falls uncomfortably flat, its clean harmonies do eventually allow the diamond to shine – if perhaps not with its fullest sheen. But these are all slight negatives from an impressively imposing experience. Perhaps ironically for a band so committed to the art of the electronic ostinato, HTRK are inconsistent, but when they nail it, they make sure everyone knows it.

Richard Ruston