Pitchshifter

With an album almost finished and due for release early next year, it would be no mistake if someone was planning this to be the tour to bring Sikth out of the shadows and into the limelight. Eight months of writing, recording and practising for what their website describes as a “defining second album” has formed an extremely confident and mature band that is clearly capable of captivating an audience and taking control of what is a comparatively large stage. Their performance this evening is polished, but is this necessarily to their advantage? It is possible that, at times, Sikth have succumbed to pressure from above – label bosses or management gurus - dropping their creative standards for what ‘the industry’ sees as a more sellable item. The rawness that made Sikth so appealing in a dingy Camden backroom three years ago has become stylised. It’s possible that Sikth has become a product.

They still manage to remain innovative in many respects. The band’s two singers generate an on-stage friction as they compete to out-squeal each other; banshee groans mix with gothic roars, high-pitched streams of staccato babbling collide with caustic rock vocals. Older songs have been refined to their creative peak whilst new songs allude to a new, less confrontational sound, fusing their fundamental hyper-maniac angst with melodic guitar sections and almost wistful singing. But it’s when they tell us to bring out the lighters that you know something is askew.

Pitchshifter bound on stage to a backing track of programmed beats before picking up their instruments and diving straight in to an unfathomable mixture of rock riffs that make you scream to mosh up and down even though you know that, by now, you’re far too old. There is a pungency to Pitchshifter that you can’t escape; the quality of rock is superb. Guitars echo vocals and the crowd screams the choruses back at them. Sometimes there can be a limited side to this, and at some points you’re looking forward to a change of pace or style, but that wouldn’t be the essence of Pitchshifter. What is that essence? A need to throw yourself around and enter a hectic world that they create, a world where men clearly in their 30s can still say they’re feeling hungover from getting stoned, drunk and drugged on a Sunday night.

With a legacy as far stretching as Pitchshifter's, it would be naïve to expect the unexpected from their live show. They have essentially perfected their set from years on the road and play knowing that what they are doing is exactly where they want to be. Like Sikth, Pitchshifter have found themselves returning to the surface of the music scene after an anticipated long break. But there has certainly been no need for them to spend this time embarking on a journey of self definition. They are the masters and have found success, fans and happiness. They have returned to music because they couldn’t lose the bug. They love this music completely, and you can see it in their show. Singer Jon Clayden screams, “Did you miss us?" Then, later, “I’ll tell you a secret. We missed you. In fact, we couldn’t live without you!"