The Albert, 2nd July 2008

Sometimes you have to re-acquaint yourself with the simple pleasures; like watching unsigned bands in small venues. Freed from all the media hype, without the PR machine churning out yards of empty hyperbole, the music gets to stand on its own two feet. And watching Brighton band Revenge of Shinobi is the very essence of that experience.

The Brighton four-piece are, in the first instance, as unassuming a band as you could wish to watch. So much so that there is a certain onstage introspection about them, turning inwards in a circle-the-wagons style of playing reminiscent of early Foals performances. Maybe this is the kind of music that a band like Foals might have made if they had spent a year living in the wilds of Alaska gazing wonderstruck across some grand frozen wilderness. Although the two bands share a certain dance sensibility, there is nothing scientifically cold or stark-edged about

Revenge of Shinobi; instead the sound is full of humanitarian warmth and soft curves. Experimental but danceable, musically there are nagging rhythms and transcendent guitar lines, looping mantra-like vocal harmonies and furrowing bass grooves that linger warmly around before melting into the consciousness. Above the musicality there is a loose-limbed freedom and yearning to the whole sound. This is music that carries with it that feeling of instinctive spirituality, as if it longs to be played in some vast, long-neglected, roofless cathedral, and it’s perhaps this deep longing that brings the music its sense of underlying pathos.

Yet equally, though this is music for open skies and wistful hearts, in the compact surroundings of The Albert these are sounds which are rendered warmly and woozily concussive, bouncing around the four small walls with embraceable relish. It is dance music for the soulful. It is a beautiful thing, not because it is perfect but because of its imperfections, which throw the whole picture into wondrous relief.

When the band do find those perfect moments the effect is bewitching and liberating. Opener ‘More Dogs’ and ‘Organ’ speak of wonders unceasing. ‘House’ is a beautiful, devilish dance jam. The new material has the feel of future wonders about it. Put simply: a simple night, and one to remind even the most hardened soul why they fell in love with music in the first place.

Words by Joe Owen
Photo by Jaimie Weston