Gig Review: Peter Frampton - Corn Exchange, Cambridge 12/11/11

Now into his sixth decade of performing, Peter Frampton is a living legend. Commercially, his success may have been somewhat short-lived but pick at the stitching of rock music and you'll find him interwoven into its very fabric. Released in 1976, 'Frampton Comes Alive!' is still one of the greatest selling live albums ever, going six-times platinum, yet he is mostly remembered for making his guitar speak. He does this by using an effect known as a 'talkbox' and Frampton is certainly the man who popularised its use more than any other artist.

That talkbox is here for tonight's gig at the Corn Exchange. The event, rather grandiosely titled "An Evening With Peter Frampton", is a sold-out, all-seater, three-hour marathon divided into two defined halves. The first half, celebrating the 35th anniversary of that aforementioned album, the one that Frampton jokingly refers to as "Me Comes Alive!", sees the band giving it a full airing. The second half, dedicated to Frampton's more recent work, includes material he's written for others and covers of songs that have inspired him.

Watching the lights dim, the large video screen at the back of the stage flood with simulated smoke and hearing the familiar recorded opening of roaring crowd burst forth from the monitors, is certainly enough to trigger off the nostalgia and a few goose bumps. The band shuffle into position and, finally, Frampton emerges with a mile-wide grin. They launch themselves straight into 'Something's Happening' and we're off. The five men, amongst them Sidney Sheldon, the album's original bassist, make a fine fist of picking their way through the order, track-by-track, note-for-note, beat-for-beat. "Hello Cambridge!", announces Frampton, before popping in the information that he has always supported the city in the Boat Race. The cheered response shows he's hitting the right notes even when he's not bending the strings.

The flowing locks and the slimline figure may be gone, as the awkwardly schmaltzy images flashing across the backdrop seem keen to highlight, but his honeyed vocal remains surprisingly undiminished. It's a soft, rich and faintly nasal Clapton-esque croon that yawns out from the back of his throat. When combined with his inspirational guitar technique, he is able to create a formidable sound. His touch, awareness and control of both tone and variation of string pressure is second to none. Every string bend, tremolo and slide is pinpoint and each finger movement is accompanied by a twist of both torso and face.

Through the funky shimmying of 'Doobie Wah' and the sweeping hit 'Show Me The Way', his pistoning knees propel him around the stage like a wobbling skittle that refuses to fall. The latter song takes him from the right to centre-stage where his talkbox is positioned and we get a full display of how his mouth shape and finger position dictate the robotic sound that emerges. Throughout the set, each guitar change brings with it a sidestep from clean and crisp into warm and tremulous. One particular highlight, 'Baby, I Love Your Way', brings the coy audience fully into play and 'Do You Feel Like We Do?' is a brilliant climax to the first half, inspiring both a guitar-battle with the increasingly-featured second guitarist and a refusal to perform the track's celebrated talkbox ending - "I don't have to do it tonight, do I?" he teases, shouting "Make me!" before, of course, he acquiesces.

Certainly, the monitors do play up momentarily, there's the occasional fluffed line, and there are a few sedentary pauses between songs whilst the band switch instruments and Frampton fires up the fans, but the gentle self-deprecation displayed by the man more than makes up for these misgivings.

After the interval, we get a good dousing of his latest album 'Thankyou Mr. Churchill' with the pacy 'Restraint' and the biographical 'Vaudeville Nanna And The Banjolele'. We're also treated to an appearance from his son, Julian, who is greeted by a coddling audience aah-ing. The hooded Frampton Junior responds by snarling back the loud rocker 'Road To The Sun', before a gaudily distracting backdrop. He cuts a menacing figure with his constantly flicked long-hair but it's mainly his formidable vocal that leaves many folks in shock.

With three barking instrumentals from the Grammy-winning 'Fingerprints' and a surprisingly caustic cover of Soundgarden's 'Black Hole Sun' it clearly defines Frampton Senior's decision to start mining a harder seam of rock. Of course, he pulls it back to something more palatable in the encore by sending us off singing his praises with a sublime rendition of George Harrison's 'Whilst My Guitar Gently Weeps'. Before a packed house, Frampton certainly came alive tonight.

Photograph courtesy of Stuart Hobden @ www.stuarthogbenphotography.co.uk

Also published @ Cambridge-News = http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Whats-on-leisure/Reviews/Peter-Frampton-14112011.htm

Album Review: Kvelertak - Kvelertak

Kvelertak’s debut album has been kicking up a storm in Europe since the middle of last year, with U.S. fans catching only a faint backdraft of hearsay about these killer Norwegian punks every now and then. Finally, this month, it gets a proper North American release (and accompanying tour) and, for those of you who like big, brash, abrasive music and haven’t yet heard it, this is going to blow you away.

What this all means is I get another chance to big up one of the surprise debut albums of last year. I could start by using this space to remind you of all the other newbies you may have missed around the same time; folks like England’s Lower Than Atlantis or Sweden’s No Hawaii or even the stunning shot in the arm that Quebec’s Barn Burner presented us with, but that would be remiss of me.

This is all about six different blokes, with six different music tastes, making incredibly bruising punk and hardcore music, riddled with rock n’ roll affectations, that will have you name-checking straight-up noisy bastards like Black Flag and Refused one minute, Fu Manchu and Bison B.C. the next, before you move on to, say, Kylesa and Coliseum, then Purified In Blood and Enslaved. To be honest the list of bands that this lot remind me of, in turns, is endless.

One thing is for sure – the album benefits from being dialed up until you can feel the bass rattling your brain (at which point the old dude downstairs will start using his broom-handle to redecorate his ceiling). Don’t stop, keep turning it up until the drums start to make your teeth chatter (the dogs in the neighborhood should now be barking in unison). Basically you want it up where the scorched vocals of Erlend Hjelvik start to peel the wallpaper from the walls and the cops start hammering down your door. If you can hear it cave-in as the battering ram connects, it ain’t loud enough.

Put simply, Kvelertak, an apt Norwegian word meaning stranglehold, has thick meaty grooves, is ripped through with buzzing power chords and is bathed in an all-encompassing, scathing screamo. Within the melee, you’ll catch hints of something else, maybe stoner or black metal (“Liktorn”, I’m looking at you) and this leads to the album stretching out, getting steadily more epic as it progresses. The lyrics, all in their native language, generally explore the subjects of Norse folklore, tradition and mythology that are specifically related, playfully, back to members of the band. Hell, you won’t understand them anyway and you won’t care a jot. When they sing about the time when Bjarte forgot to pick Erlend up from band practice, you’ll be kicking seven shades of shit out of your own bedroom wall.

As they did with their early demos, they’ve again rounded up a few friends to help out, dragging in guest appearances from Andreas Tylden (JR Ewing), Hoest (Taake) and Ryan McKenney (Trap Them). You’ll get to hear Nattefrost (Carpathian Forest) spitting blackened venom into “Fossegrim” as the band behind him spew out a volley of rock n’ roll, all bent up with wickedly catchy, riffed licks. You’ll marvel as Ivar Nikolaisen (Silver) roars bloody murder at “Blodtørst” and listen in stunned silence as the band proceed to pound him into submission with a bass-driven force that magically splits open to reveal some warping, acoustic stringwork that tips its stained hat at The Who. And yet they are so much more. “Sultans Of Satan” is just one example – it’s a harum-scarum gang-chanted plod that flowers into a transparently melodic and fantastically addictive chorus, yet has a whole, brazenly psychedelic, nakedly old-school, cavalcade of material to follow that fleshes it out to bursting point.

This is live music bottled – I’d swear you can actually smell the smoke pouring from the cabs. You get this sense that every single band member is bouncing off the walls, and each other, as they play. It may be that bit too raw or too base for some but, for those with a strong constitution, you’ll be aping the band’s energy levels and, by the end of the relatively-reserved nod-a-thon that is final track “Utrydd Dei Svake”, you’ll be staring in awe at Baroness’ John Dyer Baizley’s superb artwork, frantically flipping it over in a fruitless search for lyrics to join in with, and panting and sweating just as vehemently. And that won’t even be the end; both a blessing and a curse – value for money generally adds on a pair of love-handles. All the same, this new release features a heap of, even-more unhinged and somewhat swarthier, BBC session and demo versions of the tracks within. Oh boy, are you in for a treat, America.

Also online with samples @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/kvelertak-kvelertak