Warpaint.

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds.

26th October 2010.

There’s something really quite absorbing about Warpaint. The all-girl quartet from L.A. are not here it seems, to take themselves too seriously, but to have a damn good time. And they’re hell bent on making sure the people who pay to see them do to. Walking into the Brudenell they’re spotted on each others backs trying to break through the crowds and by the end of the evening they have most certainly broken each of them down with their unique brand of distorted psychedelia and rapturous melodies.

Opening with their self-titled track, the noise is completely arresting and it is visible that they have a real love for what they do. Yet, it isn’t this love which sets them apart from other bands at the minute, it’s their raw talent.  Drummer, Stella Mogwaza and bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg are the pulsating heartbeat of the band perfectly illustrated during Mogwaza’s stickmanship towards the end of ‘Elephants’. Their three-piece melodies work when they probably shouldn’t too… in a band who make such a raucous impact on a crowd, Lindberg, guitarist Theresa Wayman and main vocalist Emily Kokal offer delicate and almost ethereal voices that leave Leeds in a dazed like state.

There’s a substance behind Warpaint that isn’t usually present in a lot of today’s buzz bands, namely Brother.  But maybe, just maybe, this is a buzz that is here for the long haul… I’m in.