The Freebutt, 8th May

Prolonged sound problems accompanied by the dubious task of tumbleweed clearing preceded tonight’s main act Sad Season, featuring former SiKTh frontman Mikee Goodman at the helm alongside Anna McInerney of Bat for Lashes.

There was a sense of foreboding anticipation, despite the band appearing somewhat miss-matched. It’s almost as if a school teacher thought he’d compile half a jazz rhythm section with the best part of a young and disenfranchised Rage Against The Machine. Once the similarly surreal crowd had adapted, the haunting melodies of ‘Sun Never Sets’ crept amidst the progressive builds to the heavier drops.

The band created less of a forced ‘Best of the Naughties Comeback Tour’ and more of a balanced and nurtured understanding between two different stand points; genre-translators with a firm grasp of this ‘primal’ language. With a heady (and dready) concoction of “all things tranquil, aggressive, sorrowful and sublime”, Sad Season are lab technicians of the experimental in Brighton.

Getting the chance to grab both Tom (vocals and guitar) and Mikee (vocals) after their short set, they revealed that they had been friends since “forever” and played together when they were all assigned to different projects. “It’s always been this way. A progression from recording everything in jam sessions back in 2002 to where we are now, really, is just how it’s been: everyone doing their own thing.”

The question is whether some things should be kept simply as the original good thing. Day jobs are important guys.

Words by Tom Sargeant
Photos by Sarah Hadland