Posted by Benjamin Forrester on Sunday, November 27, 2016
Three Trapped Tigers
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER –
Many of my nearest and dearest would tell you that, when it comes to music I like to throw around the word ‘favourite’ a lot. But I can honestly say, hand on heart, that the latest LP from Three Trapped Tigers is my favourite release of the year. These London based wiz kids have been playing their mind-bending blend of prog, math and electronica for a good 6 plus years now and on second album Silent Earthling they expanded their pallets further to craft an album that sounds like its from another planet! We’re here at a pretty packed out Soup Kitchen tonight as the band bring their lengthy end of year UK tour to a close.
Support tonight comes from The Physics House Band who are another household name in the current prog/math scene.They’ve not released any new material in a good few years but tonight they play us a bunch of new tracks that they tell us will be a part of an album due in the new year. The songs are even more prog than previous materials, lots of regimented bass grooves and delay-heavy guitar wig outs. There’s a few good riffs in there that get the crowd in the head banging mood but for me, the songs are just a little too long and I do loose a bit of interest at times. Don’t get me wrong though, these guys are great musicians and a tight live unit and there are some really cool moments in the set that has definitely got me ready to hear this new record!
Three Trapped Tigers are a well oiled machine, powered by three exceptional musicians who are pretty much perfect live. Tonight, they play from their faultless back catalogue, but with a slight lean towards the new record. Of course, I am more than happy with this with opener ‘Silent Earthling’ sounding even more gigantic than I imagined and the rest seem to agree as heads nod in unison enthusiastically. Crowds at math rock shows are pretty chill, lots of chin stroking and that, but tonight’s crowd seem up for dance with tracks like ‘Rainbow Road’ and ‘Cramm’ providing some pretty high energy grooves to get lost in.
Each member of this band is really interesting to watch, guitarist Matt throws his long fringe around the stage, head down, fully submersed in his playing while keyboardist Tom stares into crowd and rocks back and forth, almost as if he’s been entranced. And then you have Adam who is a pretty ridiculous drummer to watch, he works hard every track, beating the living shit out of his skins but playing with pain staking precision, he is pretty mind boggling to watch. It’s also funny to see his light grey shirt slowing turn into a much darker grey as the set progresses.
It’s awesome to hear some tracks off the bands earlier EPs that keyboardist Tom informs us haven’t been played live in a while which is greeted by lots of excited cheers from the crowd. In fact the first track that I really got in to was ‘7’ which is a mental track that sees the band at their loudest and at their most delicate and it is utterly delightful to hear it live!
Naturally, the whole room are completely spellbound by the band’s performance, and after their set there are passionate screams to hear more, so the band come back on and ask the crowd which song they’d like to hear which I think is a nice touch. Our faces are melting once more and the band hurry off to the merch stand and seem in very high spirits, with big gins across their faces as they happily chat to fans. Three Trapped Tigers are everything you want from an instrumental band, exciting songs, stupidly good musicians and incredible live, and tonight they cement themselves as one of the countries finest.
Three Trapped Tigers Official | Facebook | Twitter
I joined the Silent Radio family near the very start of my move to Manchester in 2012 and I'm still having the best time! During my stay here I've been in two noisy bands, had a not so noisy solo project, made a zine, started a blog and started a radio show. It's been productive to say the least and it's all been intersperse with a shit load of gig going and beer drinking. I would love it if you followed me on twitter @dr_brainless for excitable tweets about playing, watching and living new music.
