The Camden Crawl
Various venues, London
01/05/2010 – 02/05/2010

Why, we’ve never seen so many Macs; still, that’ll be a rainy weekend in Camden for you… Really, though, the Crawl’s always been an outstanding barometer of the current state of the toilet circuit nation, so it should come as no surprise that there are any number of electronic pleasures to be savoured, ranging from the high-energy but decidedly low-budget capering of Casiokids making Alphabeat look like a Leonard Cohen tribute band, right through to the bunny-impersonating, like-it’s-about-to-be-rationed Jagermeister-fuelled whoomping wobbliness of Drum Eyes and on to the concrete-clad blitzkrieging belligerence of Necro Deathmort and a set from Silver Columns that, slightly sickeningly, shows its more familiarly folky protagonists to have an awesome accidental affinity with rave, with Adem looking particularly liberated. Hell, even a performance that recalls La Roux at a funeral – visually and presence-wise, alas – can’t completely overrule Lonelady’s Kristin Hersh-y crackle.

Not that there aren’t also twangy thrills aplenty, mind – Gang Of Four, for all their obvious proto-Franz charms, struggle to outstrip their curiosity status, but fellow veterans Teenage Fanclub do wonders to increase their youthful following via a Koko’n'cockle-warming harmony-o-rama, while newer hopefuls Yuck join those Ride-Dinosaur Jr. dots very tastily indeed, Calories do a fantastic job of ransacking the shed where the Wedding Present keep all their buzzsaws, and Pulled Apart By Horses take melodic hardcore from the 80s/90s cusp and dip it, screechingly, into boiling oil galore, which is the very ace-est of calls. Furthermore, that’s not even nearly as leftfield as it gets: Samuel And The Dragon are a staggering find, specialising in a more glitchtronic take on early Portishead’s classy claustrophobia but with Samuel bedecked in a magnificent sci-fi ensemble that goes beyond mere drag and into mercurial drama, while Gaggle are 20-ish melancholically hypnotic singing ladies all set for the ‘Prince Charming’ ball. A choral deluge of excellence.    

Iain Moffat