Review // Delphic @ Sala Razzmatazz, Barcelona

And so, it’s that time of year again when we all have to trudge out to go see bands tipped as this years Next Big Thing™ without perhaps fully appreciating what they are all about. Seriously, how often have you perused a gig guide, squinted with vague recollection, and announced “Yeah, heard of them,…they’re supposed to be good, right?” Not necessarily. It simply means that some of the more, ahem, excitable members of the music press have lodged them in your brain as a band that you have to name check at every available opportunity, just to show that you’re “keeping it dense, yeah?” And this year, the powers that be have anointed Delphic as being “well fucking futile.”
That’s not to say they are always wrong, and for every sack of shit there is a shining star, someone who can justify the hype with decent tunes and being actually quite good. At least here in mainland Europe we’ve had almost 2 months to digest Delphic’s debut LP Acolyte before they hit the road, time in which we’ve seemingly decided “Yeah, you know what? They’re not half bad.”

As if aware of the long hard slog that lies ahead of them, opener Clarion Call really did sound like a call to arms, James Cook’s impassioned delivery imploring that while “It’s your life”, they clearly wanted us to ride along with them. Whether by accident or design, playing a club this late into the night certainly suited their brand of indie-dance rock, allowing them to ramp up the beats and samples like a nu-Madchester Nite Versions for the new decade. The extended hypnotic refrain of Red Lights segued neatly into a dreamy, almost two part version of This Momentary, guitarist Matt Cocksedge’s clean guitar lines mutating into the kind of floor filler Orbital would be proud to call their own. Submission summoned the ghosts of what might have happened had Duran Duran ever found themselves as the house band at The Haçienda before a gloriously anthemic rendition of debut single Counterpoint rounded things off with both band and audience belting out the central refrain “Nothing’s wrong today”.

Although only a little over 35 minutes, the set certainly didn’t seem overly short, due in no small part to certain songs melting into each other like one long disco medley. As has been noted before, someone in the band clearly understands the dynamics of the dancefloor, and its on nights like this that it really shows. Comparisons have inevitably been made with the Godfathers of this scene, New Order, and to be fair, not all of them are unwarranted. The chiming guitars and skittering drums of Doubt, even with the extra drive it had live, leave little room to imagine otherwise, but influence is not the same as plagiarism. You have to learn from the best if you want beat the rest, and on this showing Delphic certainly have the talent, aesthetic and intelligence to merit some attention. Will they have the staying power? That remains to be seen, but if they keep on like this, they’ll make acolytes of us all.

Words by Derek Robertson
Photos by Santiago Periel





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