Periodic Table For Two

An old Nightshift review, showing that we writers do like a bit of simple fun sometimes, it's not all art noise, unrock, trickstep and single malt, you know. The X is a much missed Oxford venue. Alison, the landlady, read this review and thought the last line was a jibe at UTE for recycling bad 80s rock. Well, they do sort of do that, but this was simply a comment on how bloody messy it is in the UK. Hardly a biting social indictment, but there you go...

UNITING THE ELEMENTS, Exeter Hall 7/7/06

You may find a section in your local record shop called “World Music”. To be honest, it’s pretty meaningless genre, and I for one have never heard music from any other planets, despite owning albums by David Bowie and Sun Ra. It’s also arbitrary which local styles are allowed entry into the World enclave: if Nigerian blues and Cuban jazz are recognised neo-folk micro-genres, why not Glaswegian indie or Mitteleuropean stadium rock? It is the latter that Uniting The Elements arrive toting, and whilst this ought to be enough to send us all home feeling nauseous, there’s something in the quality of UTE’s superb performance that excuses cardinal taste crimes. Scarlet haired and spring-loaded vocalist Dawn boasts an impressively agile, strident voice, and guitarist Ola may have a full armoury of classic rock tricks and giant amps, but it’s the drummer who steals the show, spraying beats like an out of control holepunch even whilst she bolsters everything with rigid steely rhythms. It’s a praiseworthy performance by anyone’s standards, but nobody that slim and delicate has any business making like a punk John Bonham for forty minutes!

Musically, UTE keep the surprises to a minimum: of course the ballads are a bit rubbish, of course the electronic backing track is occasionally tacky, of course the lyrics work better when they’re enquiring whether you wouldn’t be averse to punching the air than when they’re cogitating life’s mysteries. But this is party music, and shouldn’t be scrutinised too closely. Better to remember that UTE quit their jobs in Germany to live in a caravan, playing 250+ gigs a year, and surely nobody with a tiny hint of rock romance in them can deny a little respect for that. A grotesque cross between The Quireboys and Rednex, UTE are as ridiculous as No Doubt and as two-dimensional as The Archies…but, fuck me, I’m a convert. It’s time to get drunk, put on implausible outfits and dance in a field. Just remember to recycle your rubbish, though, we’re in Europe now…