SCRAN are a Post Punk Auckland band launching their hot debut EP which dropped on St Valentine’s Day. Plenty of heart and soul amongst dark themes from the stage.
The band formed around Lewis Yeats lead vocals, and Oscar Davies-Kay rhythm guitar and vocals, in 2022. A pandemic musical baby and a worthy reflection of the days of fear and rage and eventual catharsis.
Is it Love or Confusion. The Hendrix classic from 1967 is a possible entry point to the band tonight and popular music is not absolutely bound by the confines of time. Rock comes first and then you get Post Rock. Not strictly so and it is intergalactic at the common source.
The rest of the crew. Mason Fairey drums, Liam Pram lead guitar, Paul Brown bass. The EP is To Your Heart’s Content. They were onto the Valentine’s Day synchronicity.
They role it out in order.
New Ceremony and Yeats has the rich baritone of Ian Curtis in the first half of the song. He gets fraught and anguished later. There is the heavy atmosphere of Joy Division along with the dance-oriented benediction of New Order in one package.
I take it as a possible homage to Ceremony, of which there is a live version by Joy Division and a studio one by New Order.
What are these Luxury Animals? Breathing down my neck. The meshed band sound gets heavier.
Davies-Kay is not the lead vocalist, but he puts incredible energy into his delivery to elevate the singing above the (appropriately) heavy attack. Him and Yeats are the songwriters.
Born Again is closer to Metal and Yeats can bellow in a monotone like Motorhead Lemmy. Biblical grief is chanted. I wanna feel born again and the sentiment is rage.
They have an arsenal of styles. Rent is Due is melodic Indie Rock. In a curious and satisfying way they touch on the Smiths with their jangling guitars. My car is empty/ I keep having dreams of you.
Inner Child is similar. Majestic guitar melodies that Crazy Horse played around the time of Rust Never Sleeps, and Yeats is a stronger voice than warbling Neil.
Primate Plan has the guitar firepower and pressure wave rhythmic assault of Husker Du. Lets have a baby is a chant.
Unnatural Horror and they push it out further. Meshed guitars well up and overflow. Embrace the fear at the core. They end up sounding like old school Rock.
A powerful launch for their debut EP.
They do quieten things down for the song that follows. Melodic Rock guitar licks, but the lead singer still gets to bellow like Motorhead Lemmy.
I can’t breathe/ I can’t breathe/ Gimme something to believe. Seems to refer to the crush of the first two years of viral panic where we were taught to believe the very air could kill us.
Paul Cathro is a Dunedin musician who is well known as a member of Ha The Unclear, also from the Deep South.
He is playing as a power trio with a bass guitarist and drummer.
He has a fair amount of music out on Spotify including an album for 2016, but the only song from that streaming service he plays tonight is My Beautiful World from a 2021 EP.
It’s a good one as he starts out with a clattering Hard Pop sound and pushes it into edgy Buzzcocks territory with the guitar getting wild and springing off in all directions.
Throw Me Back opens his set, ringing guitar and Power Pop with a pronounced Kiwi accent. It does remind me of the early days of Chris Knox, when he was heading from the Punk Enemy, towards the edgy Pop of Toy Love.
The accent also curiously connects to Peter Perret and the Only Ones.
Beautiful ringing guitar riffs on My God and Distance, delivering sunshine in the manner of the La’s and their classic There She Goes Again. At the very least, it approaches it.
Quite a contrast to Swallow the Rat, and a heavier Post-Punk Auckland trio.
Brian Purington guitar, Stephen Horsley bass and Hayden Fritchley drums.
They roll through songs like Mind and Chain Mail with relentless gothic guitar riffs powered by the engine room of bass guitar and drums rolling inexorably on.
Small Plates lifts the tone somewhat with a guitar sound that sparkles.
Those three are from latest album South Locust.
Chromos is a track off Leaving Room which heralds a different rhythmic approach towards an Eastern drone and nice melodic touches.
A great EP launch for SCRAN where they deliver cathartic and melodic Post Punk. Contrasting nicely with Paul Cathro’s Power Pop and Swallow the Rat’s heavier presence.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
SCRAN
Swallow The Rat
Paul Cathro
