Power Lunches
Something is growing in the neon and cobblestone streets of East London, something loud, raw and vicious. With the demise of one of South London’s most beloved punk venues (The Grosvenor), a small bar in Dalston has opened its doors to punk and hardcore promoters and the results have been impressive. With a tightly descending staircase leading to a cramped, psychedelically lit space bedecked with mirrored surfaces, Power Lunches has been the perfect showcase for the young blood, up and comers of the punk and hardcore scene.
Next Monday sees the venue hit by some of the youngest bands of the Yorkshire scene, a small army of teenage skateboard nerds with a penchant for 80’s hardcore in all its forms. Jason and the Argosnauts sound like SS Decontrol having a fight with Negative FX. No Form play schizophrenic hardcore filtered through a strange lens of Rudimentary Peni and early Butthole Surfers distortion, while ZFE’s power violence assault distils anger into music. Between them, you won’t be leaving without at least minor ear damage.
Local support comes in the form of Cop and Personnel. The former play bleak post hardcore that sounds like the product of a Northern mining town in the late 80s; spiking, distorted bass lines, insistent high pitched guitars and a muddied production creating something that is by turns hypnotic and heavy. Their demo is the perfect soundtrack to recession Britain. The latter have a solid pedigree – with members of Frau, Good Throb and Shitty Limits involved – and play melodic post punk of a kind that the listener can’t help but be swept away by. The wide range of musical backgrounds involved is apparent in their obvious ease taking different styles and moulding them into a distinct and unique sound; compare the jangled summer vibes of Modern Drab to the darker, thumping shout-a-long of Hysteria, which are placed back to back on the band’s most recent EP.
Power Lunches is one of the best venues in London at the moment if you want to catch loud, raw music in a sweaty, intimate setting – the way it should be. This show brings together the best new music brewing in both the London and Yorkshire hardcore punk scenes, so if you like your music uncompromising then this one is definitely for you.This show is general admission.
This post was categorised in Archive.