Two singers, one bullet
Dead! Dead! Dead! are a four piece with a handful of singles behind them that get a good crowd and a decent reception for an early slot in the Rock Sound Cave.
Sporting a selection of fine jackets they produce a distinctly indie – angst sound that leans towards Franz Ferdinand. With a great bass sound they deliver a succession of choppy riffs that give way to driven choruses all with plenty of energy behind them. The opening number is quite impressive but as guitarist Matt takes over lead vocals for the second song some of the initial impact is lost. His vibrato, warbling voice doesn't work well and the quirky nature of the song loses the energy they created with the opening number. Halfway through it erupts into a mess of guitars where the tune just gets completely lost.
They do pick up a little with the introduction of some keyboard parts and despite the vocals (that are starting to resemble a bad Arthur Brown impression!) the songs start to work a little better with some big chord changes. Thankfully Neil takes back the vocal slot and it all gets back on track but the crowd has already thinned and the discordant off beat nature of the song does little to win people over, the whole impression is just too disjointed.
They do show promise on a couple of tracks, particularly with some impressive harmonies in the last song but on this performance they just don't have enough quality material in the tank. The between song banter is a little odd and as Neil tends to look at the floor through much of the set they successfully fail to engage the crowd at any point. The rather messy ending pretty much sums up the performance, today may be an off day for them but they could have done a lot more and as such should go down as an opportunity missed.