helen cattanach

This record is so damned cool. So damned ultra-cool.

It’s sorta- like the late ’80s indie punk art of Sonic Youth with its rocky side exposed, combined with The Pixies and with the classic English rock pop of T-Rex thrown in. There’s even a nod to US ‘60s girl pop and urban country twang. It stayed in my CD player for a few weeks, and I keep hitting the the play again.

Los Dominados is essentially a band formed from the remnants of Moler, who mixed it up as a grungy, power pop band playing hip, street-level music with tough lyrics in the late ‘90s. Twenty years later, there’s been a vast development in song-writing - as shown in this, the band’s fourth album. We find a broader tapestry of influences and the band members have learned a lot about minimalism as well as using dark and light shade. And about sophistication.

 
I missed the first band, but I’ve heard good things. I did catch The Pro Tools.

Led by the extraordinary Pete Howlett, ThePpro Tools hammer at you - they’re a lot of noisy, in-your-face fun; coupled with Howlett’s almost Dolls-esque behaviour.

“No-one flicks his hair with such elegant contempt as Johnny Thunders,” remarked fellow audience member Nazz Nassari tonight, in response to my observation that Howlett’s perfectly timed angry slash at his hair toward the end of their set expressed an eloquent contempt). I never saw Thunders, but Howlett has a sort of compressed loathing of his instrument, despite his dexterity and talent, as if somehow the instrument simply cannot do what Howlett wants it to. Therein lies part of the public persona/reality of the man.