LIVE REVIEW: Hell Is For Heroes, Aereogramme, Iodine
5th November 2004 – West End Centre (Aldershot)
After openers Iodine’s uniquely dull brand of stodge-rock, backed up with naff showmanship right out of Dave Lee Roth’s “Frontman 101″, Aereogramme, are a much more interesting prospect; instead of relying on worn clichés, they provide half an hour of beautiful/horrifically noisy post-rock soundscapes, sounding like Sigur Ros with Marshall stacks and distortion pedals – and that’s a very good thing.
It’s been a tough year for headliners Hell Is For Heroes after having been dropped by EMI, so this tour is their first chance to prove to the masses that it was undeservedly so. They play with all the tightness you’d expect of a former major-label band, but aside from “the big hits”, they lack the material to really cut a headline slot. Tracks from the new album, however, do have an interestingly quirky edge to them, with the addition of keyboards and even a vocoder, but it looks like it’ll be the toilet venues for a little while longer, guys.
