Location: Ljubljana
Concert date: 19.03.2014
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €5
»What a boring band!« an older gentleman blurted out thoughtlessly, maybe under the influence of some social lubricant. Werefox proved exactly the opposite; the show at Channel Zero can safely be filed as proof that there’s a band on Slovenian soil operating under the banner of “alternative.”
The red thread of the gig ran clearly and vividly through the entire evening. With no shake-ups and no overly bold moves, Werefox led us into their own world of distant melodies and trembling floors. Two things deserve praise in their live show: the solid foundation and the melodic polish. The course of I Am Memory was built mainly on a gentle, persistent climb in volume all the way to an explosive peak. But the band didn’t take us to that dynamite-packed atmosphere with excessive stage theatrics, meaning guitar spinning, jumping around, and so on. No, it was precisely the lack of visual dynamics that left just enough room for the arrangements to stretch out. Put simply, Werefox carried the set through without hesitation, with a high dose of fervor and confidence.
The sound didn’t suffer too much, despite the position and the club space. Every now and then those lower frequencies crept in from who knows where and muddied the already rich instrumental harmony. The atmospheric quality of the guitar sound and the performance recalled the murkier shades of Hince’s (The Kills) guitar tone; less room, less definition. Underneath the melodic dressing, though, the rhythm section kept dictating the tempo of the performance, steady and solid; no excessive leaps or daring, but with enough room to maneuver. The vocal parts, on the other hand, left a slightly different impression over the course of the show. Within the picture of an instrumentally strong crew, the vocalist’s persona just wouldn’t loosen up and join in the performance. Toward the end of the show the tech made things worse still; so there are several reasons, but even so, the show is left with a certain strange, occasional emptiness.
We spent Wednesday evening drowned in reverb and intoxicated by Werefox’s melodicism. The band is definitely setting the standard for live instrumental performance for every self-proclaimed alternative group. I Am Memory represents both the band’s process of maturing and the veils and nuances of their musical presentation; dynamics through stasis, atmosphere through seeming simplicity. More reverb, please!
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