LIVE: LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE / SILVER VIALS – 10/01/2019

Posted by Leanne Crowley on Monday, January 14, 2019

Lorelle Meets the Obsolete

-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER-

2019 is upon us and it’s the first gig of the year for your reviewer, and there are genuinely not many better ways to kick off than with tonight’s line up.

Opening we have Silver Vials, a psych-tinged electronic duo whose changing line up and set up keeps fans and novices guessing alike. For a duo they sure know how to make some noise and waste no time in asserting themselves with an electronic beat driving the sound, which has layers of reverberating guitar and hazy lyrics layered over complex synth productions. They play an extended set tonight and it goes down well, the venue slowly filling up and curious onlookers edging ever forward in an attempt to understand what they are hearing. Although not an overbearing presence in the Manchester underground scene, they always put on a solid performance and garner ever increasing popularity.

Tonight’s headliners are Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, who are essentially a duo comprised of Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto González who add other musicians to their entourage for their live performances. They originate from Guadalajara but, after a stint in Mexico City, are now based in Ensenada, Baja California. After playing together in a few bands they began recording their psych-infused garage rock as a duo and also settled on their unusual moniker, which was half inspired by the recurring fictional film in Seinfeld called Rochelle, Rochelle and half by an episode of The Twilight Zone called The Obsolete Man. This tour is for the release of their fifth studio album, De Facto, which was released on Sonic Cathedral the day after the gig.

They arrive mid-way through Silver Vials’ set due to an afternoon session for Marc Riley at BBC Radio 6 Music but being complete professionals, they are set up quickly and ready to start on time. Opening with the incredible ‘What’s Holding You’ from 2014’s Chambers LP, it is a great track to start with, with its whirring guitars layered in feedback and rolling drum beat. New track ‘Accíon – Vaciar’ is a taste of how far the band have progressed, with its infectious guitar groove and motorik beat, harnessing a more polished vibe to that which has come before. Next up is ‘Waves Under Shadows’ from 2017’s Balance LP which is a blissed out instrumental with lashings of reverb and distortion. This is closely followed by ‘Unificado’, another track from the new LP which, courtesy of careful coordination of elements, has a haunting effect and ends up with the entire band playing with their eyes closed to truly feel the rhythm – much of the crowd are doing the same.

‘La Distinctión’ and ‘Eco Echo’, two of their most popular tracks from Balance, are played back to back and they make for a heady mixture which sees the packed venue swaying happily, and in one woman’s case going for it all out with the dancing. Two new tracks close the set, ‘Líneas En Hojas’ and ‘Resistir’, which both have distinct krautrock elements in them; the former’s echoing vocals haunt long after they have gone and the latter has a more pronounced guitar sound.

Lorelle Meets The Obsolete are one of those bands you just don’t get bored of seeing, and tonight was no exception. They pulled out a superb performance that is exactly what was needed on a bleak January night.

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