01/11/02
Gaelic Club, Sydney

Decoder Ring, Further, Tylea

After a mad dash to get down to The Gaelic Club by 9pm to catch some of Tylea's set, we slowly made our way through the near capacity crowd to get a spot up the front and were sorely disappointed to find that she'd already been and gone.

This is set to be a huge night for Further, after their nightmarish trip up north, they"ve returned to their humble loving home-crowd to launch their new EP, the blinding Our Own Worst Enemy. I was keen to see how they thought they'd out-do their last launch's success. Tonight they're uniformed, decked out in jeans and all new matching long-sleeved black work shirts bearing a pink 'F' on the right sleeve and a white monster's heads on the back (each member has a different monster) talk about putting effort into every last detail. Their set started off with an exploding sonic blast exciting the crowd from the very first moment, I feel a smile forming as the opening bars to Sonic Protest are played, looking around I notice it has affected everyone else in much the same way, punters are smiling broadly, singing and moving along to the music. The blistering set was fuelled by scorching new tracks from the EP, the new single Yesterday's Enemy, High Class Escape Act, WYHBAHWWATFFIYENA where we saw the return of 'the redneck westie' sporting a freaky looking mask helping out on vocal duties; the rest of the set remains a sizzling, delicate and psychotic blur of beautiful noise. Further have truly outdone themselves tonight!

Decoder Ring are up next, starting off with their sweet atmospheric post-rock layered instrumentation, seem to be in high spirits tonight and why not, launching their new self-titled album to a full room here at The Gaelic Club. Highlights in their set included the chaotic and engaging Protein Express from their EP, their new single Ether which saw Tylea briefly return to the stage to do guest vocals, the most rocking part of their set being when Cibot re-graced the stage and stole the limelight for Colossus (a track on the new album which he co-wrote) a 3-minute explosion about drugs and rock & roll with a very Trans Am guitar and synth sound. Decoder Ring's set was full of beauty and intensity from all angles, I must say it's been a long time since I've seen such an entertaining live instrumental band that rocked so hard, they have this way of even making the silence between notes create the mood. What a way to launch a great record, the crowd lapped up every minute, the perfect ending to crazy evening at The Gaelic Club!
 
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