This article was first published on Louder Than War on 7 July 2013.
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Beat Mark
Hairy Dog, Derby
7 July 2013
French garage-poppers from the Ample Play stable are out on their first UK tour at the moment. We loved their debut Howls of Joy when it dropped earlier this year so headed off to catch up with them in Derby.
It’s a blisteringly hot day. The sun has shone all the long, long day. Dusk is falling but the heat has built up and a scorching Sunday has turned to a clammy evening.
But Beat Mark are anything but languid as they take to the stage of a dim room in Derby. The four members of the French band, whose debut Howls of Joy (released earlier this year on the Ample Play label) delighted with it’s surf-pop infused garage rock.
The grungier element of Beat Mark’s sound is more obvious on stage tonight; the solitary guitar chimes, fuzzes and chugs becoming a welcome anchor to stop you drifting in the hypnotic swirls emanating from the synths. It brings a little bit of Seattle grunge to their Britpop infused sound; a Pixies influence breaking through to match the influences of The Vaselines and Stone Roses that ebbed and flowed on the album.
The stand-out tracks from the debut are all present tonight – Son Thomas Hunter, Purple Glow, Breezing – and it’s like viewing the whole of pop history through a wondrous kaleidoscope. Influences are recognisable but are twisted into new shapes, coloured in a different hue.
They finish tonight with Move On (hear it on this five-track sampler), a growler of a track with an insistent dual vocal of ‘react, respond, think, dance, twist, move on’ building through the first half. It then becomes a spun out instrumental, swirling sounds colliding, growing bigger until eventually you’re pulled in and consumed by the song’s gravity. Despite casting a huge shadow the track never feels dark, just full of feeling. It might be unbound joy elsewhere in the set but it is a more physical sensation set forth in the churn and frenzy of the end.
The album still holds its own as we pass half-way in a year of prolific quality releases but live Beat Mark transform, showing that not only have they channeled the sounds of pop past and found a way to make it sound fresh, they’ve mastered the magic of making simple songs you’ll want to hear over and over, addicted to the giddy emotions they elicit.
All words by Sarah Lay.