Harlem @ The Captain’s Rest 13/06/2010

It’s really easy to be scathing, to just let vitriol seep out of your fingertips and onto the page. For that reason, it’s usually best not to really let rip on a band but rather to carve your opinion into a subtle and fair minded critique. Let’s dispense with that immediately. Boycotts, supporting tonight, are just awful. Each member of the band operates at 11 by default, which sounds nice written down, but in reality bludgeons out any light and shade, smashes through any sense of coherent song structure and crushes every tune into the same ‘didn’t they just play that one?’ shaped mess. Added to that is a front woman who looks so cringingly uncomfortable as she goes through the motions of pre-rehearsed moves that her stage presence is at absolute zero. Words like spiky and angular are probably what they are after in their music but after seven or eight songs any spike they had has entirely blunted. In all, they are trying way, way too hard – a problem Harlem couldn’t even begin to understand.

Rather than starting with a bang the Austin three-piece kick things off with Michael Coomer (sometimes singer, sometimes drummer) announcing that he feels unwell. And it’s written all over his pale face too. Inauspicious beginnings, but it takes seconds for the essence of the band to emerge. Harlem play scuzzy, grimy, badly recorded pop tunes that are intensely charming. An utterly laidback approach allows for tremendously effective simplicity and it almost feels like the songs are being made-up right before your eyes. Number One, presented at breakneck speed, has a 50s lilt and meandering guitar parts whilst Faces is barely two minutes of sweaty exuberance. Friendly Ghosts, a standout from the album, then really allows the trio to exhibit all their energy both musically and physically as sheer joy at playing hook driven, overdriven guitar fuelled songs translates into something terrific.

It’s fascinating just how loveable Harlem can make tunes which are so shambolic musically. Torture Me, for which the chorus is essentially a drum roll and some noise, somehow works, whilst Cloud Pleaser is not entirely in tune or well put together but equally wonderful. Singer and drummer swap singing duties, providing a nice variety to the songs, whilst the bassist takes enormous pleasure in bopping around to whatever simple bass line is place before him. It’s a strange gig, but one that is oddly compelling.

Three drunken Boycotts fans, as the night advanced, have taken control of the front of the audience and the rest of us are now forced back. The result is that a question as to whether any of us know the band’s music and have any requests is met with some inebriated ramblings from those who don’t and frustrated silence from those who do. Harlem announce that they will play four more songs. They play two. As they leave the stage the bass is placed on the floor, the singer trips over the bass and the drummer, in saluting the crowd with his beer, spills a large proportion of it onto the already stricken bass. I stumble onto Great Western Road beguiled and bewildered – but strangely satisfied. Which is the effect Harlem’s music in a nutshell.