With rare-for-the-genre “Sold Out” notices posted weeks in advance (albeit in one of the city’s smallest venues), one of the most hotly anticipated goth gigs of the year brings media darlings Mouth Ulcers to town for their first show in Scotland’s capital.
Mouth Ulcers on stage at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
The London-based band have enjoyed an incredible trajectory in little over a year, with regular plays on UK national radio, a début gig at a European festival, a German mini-tour lined up next year with equal billing with established scene guv’nors Then Comes Silence and a prestigious forthcoming support to The Mission at the request of Mr Hussey himself, with critics falling over themselves to laud the project’s “distinctive sound” and “unique take on 80’s goth”.
Viewed from a different perspective, rather than being unique, the band’s sound on the studio releases to date - a motorik driving drumbeat, pulsing eight-to-the-bar basslines, duel heavily-reverbed dark twang guitar with a low-in-the-mix vocal- is in fact remarkably similar to that of the early, more derivative releases of the gothic post-punk Class of 2015 (Whispering Sons, Holygram, Rendez Vous, Je T’Aime, Second Still etc) who presumably share the same original influences, and with only seven (albeit highly impressive) songs available so far, some of which have appeared on no fewer than three separate releases so far including recent compilation EP Silent Pictures, the band seem to have been gifted opportunities at an early stage of development which other talented young British goth bands (such as the recently split Social Youth Cult) were not offered.
But is the hype deserved, or are Mouth Ulcers just the latest band to be built up and then destroyed, or even worse, ignored? Before we can judge, we are afforded the opportunity to see another act laying claim to the G-word crown, Glasgow’s Corrine with their self-professed “heavy goth” sound, mixing dark 90’s-influenced alt-rock with folk-tinged female vocals.
Corrine’s Cat on stage at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
The band has released several singles over the last couple of years and are no strangers to support slots at Sneaky Pete’s as they have honed their live show, picking up the pace this year with the more subtle yet denser sound of single Wait and other excellent new songs on their own six track début CD Big Sad which was released last month.
Extract of Corrine performing the song Wait at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
Corinne construct atmospheric soundscapes with Andrew’s post-grunge riffing offset by Erin’s simpler, bluesier bass lines, with Cat’s melodic yet mournful vocal adding a dreamy layer over the occasional cacophony of the louder sections of songs like Visions, where the band flirt with other adjacent genres like doom and 70’s flower power rock, with Andrew’s occasional and somewhat obtrusive screamo backing vocals.
In the live context, Nyall’s precise and versatile drumming is the key to keeping everything in check through the frequent time signature changes, with Cat’s pure and confident vocal delivery the musical and visual focus despite Andrew’s axeman histrionics, and the tightly packed crowd respond very positively throughout the set.
The air of expectancy continues to rise before Mouth Ulcers squeeze their way past the pillar and through the throng to reach the low stage and begin the preparations for their own set, which mixes all the tracks from the Bandcamp-dominating EP with unrecorded songs which hint at a much broader musical palette than the holy trinity of post-punk influences (Bauhaus, Joy Division and The Cure) they usually cite in interviews.
Opener Lady Rust takes some time to ignite, with guitar feedback dominating the overall sound, but the energetic pace of early single Prevail soon has the crowd jumping. The unexpected swamp preacher goth’n’roll of another newer song The Devil’s Mad, built around a familiar (Dead Souls?) three power-chord riff keeps things moving, whilst other unrecorded tracks add other musical elements, such as additional taped synth (A Cure For The Diseased and the multi-layered Flames) or a janglier guitar sound (You’re Not In Heaven). These newer tracks are interspersed with the better-known songs from the Silent Pictures EP like Western Horror Story and Space, and the already infectiously frenetic pace builds to a crescendo in a five-song finale, four of which come from the EP.
Mouth Ulcers at Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
The grungy power of the slow-burning Satisfy is followed by the cleaner lines of Silent Pictures, before the fast-paced repetitive goth’n’roll refrain of Stuck In Your Head segues into the equally insistent driving beat of A Perfect End, before the pace moves up a further notch with the frantic 176 BPM finale Closer To You, with its classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead bridge, leaving a sweaty audience fully sated.
For a young band effectively growing up in public, Mouth Ulcers deliver a confidently impressive performance on their first appearance in Edinburgh in which lead singer and main guitarist Zak Watson plays a pre-eminent role. With his hair swept back to reveal his finely-chiselled features and sporting a dark waistcoat over a red shirt, his Perry Farrell meets Nick Cave look is offset by second guitarist (and backing vocalist) Josephine Rose and drummer David Zbirka’s more Romany goth look (One The Juggler, anyone?) and bassist Jamie-Lee Culver’s classic and more overtly gothic appearance as she stares impassively into the crowd, and this eclectic image is reflected in the growing variety of their musical offering, which hints at the potential for future development outwith the narrow confines of the darkwave ghetto.
Mouth Ulcers play further gigs in the UK, Netherlands, France and Portugal over the next two months, whilst Corrine’s next gig is at 1990 in Glasgow on the 22nd of this month.
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