Portland – Justified or not, Northern England has a reputation for heavy skies and stark industrial scenes. “Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery,” W.H. Auden once penned cheerily, describing his native region. As the saying goes in Southern England, “it’s grim up North.”
Those supposedly gloomy climes above the Watford Gap have given rise to more than a few wonderfully gloomy bands: The Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, The Smiths, and so on. The latest iteration of lads attempting to transmute Northern grim to audio gold are Leeds own Eagulls, who play ominous post-punk bred with some new wave production touches. Livin’ it up in the Hotel California this is not.
Touring on the back of their self-titled debut released last March, Eagulls arrived at Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge having already chewed through a slice of Europe and a hearty chunk of the US, with more of both still to come. They took the stage around ten, and, workmanlike as the oxblood Doc Martens bassist Tom Kelly was wearing, promptly launched into what sounded like “Nerve Endings.”
I say sounded like because, as Beth McAllister notes in her review of their album for this site, the dynamics and structure of Eagulls songs don’t always change much from one to the next. This isn’t necessarily a knock; there is a long tradition of repetition in heavy music (see Minor Threat’s Complete Discography). Sometimes it’s the cumulative effect of a sound or a sustained energy that matters. Played live, with vocals plenty loud but lyrically indecipherable among the wash of other instruments, the similarity in Eagulls’ material was compounded, and their set had a monolithic power to it.
Decipherable or not, lanky frontman George Mitchell brought a svelte, menacing presence to the stage. Clad in a black t-shirt tucked into thin-belted black slacks, Mitchell would close his eyes between passages and stumble erratically then fold one long arm behind his back and lean forward into his signature bellow.
By the end of the night it was apparent that Eagulls may be better suited to a different club, somewhere darker or danker where the crowd is more likely to respond with an aggressive energy of their own. As it was, the Doug Fir’s yellow accent lighting and timber-themed décor seemed too bright to host such a gathering, and—other than one woman who pogoed the entire time—the crowd was sedate.
Either because of this or because of the wearying effects of the road, the band offered little banter until the end of the set when Mitchell announced their last song of the night—the notably more melodic “Possessed”—by deadpanning, “this is a song about being happy.” Abruptly, Eagulls seemed to fit the environs as they played the familiar song and the crowd responded. Then, just as abruptly, the song ended, Eagulls left the stage, and the lights came up. There would be no encore.
If you’re interested in catching Eagulls at a dark, dank club near you, check out their tour dates here.
