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Cower, Hounds!
On it’s best day, nobody does heart-stoppingly loud, bullish music like the Midlands and that was evident once again on Wednesday night, where The Flapper was host for the hometown leg of Bovine’s joint UK tour with eclectic Londoners Antlered Man, and some other bloody good bands turned up as well.
Walsall’s Cower, Hounds! were the first to lay siege, with their powerfully crisp delivery setting the tone perfectly for the rest of the evening. They were quickly followed by the brilliant Wax Futures, a Telford trio who may quite possibly be my new favourite band based on this showing; their quirky, post-hardcore, punky vibes hit all the right notes, and more to the point, any band that finishes their set on a song entitled ‘Stone Cold Jane Austen’ is always going to be alright in my book.
Wax Futures
Throughout the tour, Antlered Man had been baring the brunt of headlining duties, but as they were in Bovine’s hometown, we were treated to their entirely unique brand of noise well before their bed-time. With a rich, genre-straddling mish-mash of the inspired to the downright melodically perplexing, coupled with a sneaky penny-whistle solo and one hell of a commanding drummer, they really lived up to their reputation as one of the more innovative and exciting bands around at the moment.
Antlered Man
Bovine hit the stage like a freight train on fire, throwing in tracks like the Homme-esque ‘Thank Fuck I Ain’t You’, right from the off. Their huge sound married with their prog-like take on heavy rock enveloped the venue, and whilst they seemed to play a rather abridged set, they still managed to fill it with all the bluechip players off their debut LP ‘The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire’, including the spacey title track, ‘Ghost Chair’ and the gloriously imposing ‘Military Wife’.
Bovine
Despite the drab washout beyond the walls of The Flapper, the volume of people lured out of the warmth by this ferocious beast of band just hammered home the reality that Bovine truly are one of the best bands to come out of the region in the past couple of years, and after this showing it’s becoming a fact that it getting harder and harder to ignore.
Photographs by Paul Reynolds
