GIG REVIEWS
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GIG REVIEWS |
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Danava
@ Leeds Rios 16.04.08 www.vanguard-online.co.uk
Naming yourself after Hindu gods from 5,000 years ago is going to get you a certain reputation… and Danava live up to it. First on stage at Rios, supporting the earnestly dull Witchcraft, the four-piece have the traditional support band battle to fight. And they do it by just getting their heads down and noodling frantically. Yup, in forty minutes, they fit in just three tunes, each jammed out to the maximum in a space rock style. It’s like heading back to the early seventies when British bands like Hawkwind and Man trod the earth, fueling sales of psychotropic substances. Except Danava are from the US and the 21st century. Hidden in dim lights and a barrage of feedback and close fretwork, they could pass as Germans from thirty years ago. Such vocals as there are float by, serving as colour to the musical beat. When, in the third piece, the bass strikes up a cyclic melody, the guitar, too, becomes colour and supplier of solos. Funny time signatures and key changes tip the hat to prog rock but this is space rock at heart. The bassist waves his hair about while the guitarist, the wonderfully named Dusty Sprinkles, stays still, a cross between Dee Dee Ramone and cartoonist Peter Bagge’s Buddy Bradley. Rockwell broods over a sadly-drowned out keyboard rack. Considering this is an audience here for the trad stylings of Witchcraft and the Cream-isms of local band, Gentlemen’s Pistols, Danava won respectful attention by relentlessly and tirelessly space-rocking. They turned out to be my favourite band of the evening, jamming and noodling working into my head and loosening my synapses. I was pleased to see they sell their album on 12” vinyl – you can’t roll up a Camberwell Carrot properly on a CD sleeve…… |
