By admin
While the female-fronted psych-rock troupe are no strangers to the odd stylistic change, one thing has always remained true about Warpaint; when they tour, they tour.
Having been on the road on both sides the Atlantic more or less non-stop 0since last summer, this March evening saw them return to Oxford for a third time, soldiering on with their promotion of last September’s LP ‘Heads Up’.
Starting their set with the record’s titular track, the spacey, psych-y feel of the opener settled it in well with an early drop of older fan favourites ‘Krimson’ and ‘Undertow’, which saw the kind of unostentatious yet appreciative reaction you would expect from a Warpaint crowd.
Before too long, though, the noticeably age-varied fans in attendance were treated to some of the dancier elements that have found their way into the group’s newer material in the likes of ‘The Stall’. It’s a musical change of tack from the Americans that has not been without its critics in some quarters, but certainly seemed to pulled off well here.
Well-received performances of ‘Bees’ and ‘Love Is To Die’ helped build momentum in the room that had been carried by their at-times haunting stage show, and this seemed to peak just before the end when they played the energetic ‘Bees’ from their 2010 debut album, perhaps the most stage-ready number of their repertoire.
The night was tied up well with the stomper that is ‘Disco//very’, and it wasn’t too hard to see by the end why these are such a solid feature of the touring circuit – while they may sound like a fair few other bands out there at the moment, few of them can claim to have three frontwomen, a decent musical range and a live show quite like this one.
