The Murder Capital did not miss its entrance. Ominous howls clung to the semi-darkness. The band members darted across the stage like skittish shadows. And then: that sinister synth melody from ‘The Stars Will Leave Their Stage’ that unashamedly mirrors ‘The Fragile’ by Nine Inch Nails. A metallic reverberating guitar, sparse bass and the dead man’s baritone of frontman James McGovern. Krék Echo & The Bunnymen, early 80s.
The Irish post-punk band also has a bassist who behaves in an unsurpassed manner as befits a rock ‘n’ roll bassist. His name is Gabriel Paschal Blake and in the Botanique he stood icy cool for the first few minutes next to McGovern, without a bass guitar. Ridiculous sunglasses, leather vest, theatrical arm gestures: the works. Halfway through the show the vest came off and he bundled everything together in Marcelleke, the pecs neatly stretched. Yep, Carlos Dengler of Interpol has done school.
“Brussels baby, get the moshpit open!” McGovern ordered. Just a little too enthusiastic, because you can’t easily get a bunch of overage newwavers and stoic punks in Joy Division T-shirts to mosh. If he had treated us to an Orval and opened a bag of nuts, yes, he would have been our friend.
Otherwise no complaints about ‘More Is Less’, the scorching thumper that followed. Not even about ‘Return My Head’, an indie rock gem that would grow into a festival anthem in a just world. Well, you’re not naive. And The Murder Capital does not yet rhyme with Editors. Anyway, in the Botanique the drums went boom-boom ták boom-boom ták, heavy enough to put a grin on our faces.
The aforementioned song is one of the high flyers on ‘Gigi’s Recovery’, album number two for The Murder Capital and immediately a candidate for many end-of-year lists. A record about ‘returning to a place of strength and regaining control of the few things that really matter’, according to McGovern in NME. Sounds a bit like a yoga BV tormented by burnouts, admittedly, albeit one with street cred. Our point? Uh… we forgot for a moment. The fact is that McGovern let his voice rip in desperation in the surprising new single ‘Heart In The Hole’, a song that promises The Murder Capital a glowing future.
In ‘Crying’ he flirted relentlessly with an overdose of spleen amid synth smoke that circled his calves like an electric twilight, epileptic drums and slowly swelling guitars with the venom of a swarm of mad wasps that made the suspense almost unbearable. ‘Don’t Cling to Life’ brought The Sound to mind, majestically drizzling, even if McGovern seems more spirited than the lamented bard Adrian Borland.
‘Ethel’, the song with which The Murder Capital usually closes its shows, was in the middle of the set in Brussels. Because that is possible and because that is allowed. Whatever. We heard a brutally powerful riff and had McGovern manically paint a tranche de vie: ‘Ten steps to your favourite bar tonight / Bags on site / Flirting with me like / Well you’re / You’re full of flavour and you’re winning best dressed tonight / But where are your friends now ?’ Would it be like that every night in Dublin?
There was also shouting in the Botanique. ‘I wanna see you fuckin’ move!’, door McGovern. ‘For everything, for nothing’, by you and me during ‘For Everything’. McGovern dove into the crowd as his biggest supporters whooped, clapped and cheered, the desire for destruction in their irises, the apocalypse in the whites of their eyes. Like any good post-punk band, The Murder Capital foolishly hungers for decay and damnation.
‘You could’ve watched it all’, McGovern sang in Brussels to an old friend who fell from the earth long ago into the black. McGovern breathed brittlely, rhythmically, theatrically. The slowest, most dragging songs of The Murder Capital may not always be compositionally captivating, but McGovern’s performances draw you into his wry universe again and again. That cosmos is certainly different from that of like-minded souls such as Fontaines DC, Shame and Idles, as was evident again in Brussels. To each their own purgatory, quoi.
Seen on 13/10 in the Botanique, Brussels
