Item: Formal Sppeedwear at The Underground
Rating: 7
Author: Luke Morley

New art-rockers Formal Sppeedwear celebrated the release of their debut album Punch Card in the best place possible: The Underground. This venue is the undisputed hub of Stoke-on-Trent’s music scene. Having previously given the stage to such greats as Bring Me the Horizon, Misfits and Crystal Castles, the venue now tries to give local bands a platform for their talents. It is clear just how much character this scene has when looking around the venue — old posters plaster the walls, alongside band stickers and graffiti — which is lovingly maintained, being adored by the entire community.

As the night was beginning, lobby music filled the venue — an unusual choice when you consider that the bands playing were noise- and art-rock. The outfits of the first band similarly matched the era of the music, looking as if they had walked straight from the set of The Godfather. This was the phenomenal Christian Music, a noise-rock band whose frontman Josh Baker says “make music for fans of Blade: Trinity”, performing a 45-minute set which could only be described as pure chaos. The sound was beautifully layered and varied heavily in intensity. Christian Music (known to fans as Christo) are a band I have been a fan of for a long time, so I jumped at the opportunity to be able to see them again.

This setlist was the perfect mix, being half released works, and then half unreleased tracks, which I was ecstatic to be among the first to hear. Standout tracks included ‘Christian Music F.C.’ and ‘VRS’, the respective opening and closing tracks from the European Tribunal EP, arguably their strongest work. It’s quite hard to pinpoint Christo’s sound exactly: none of their influences really show through in their music, and they just do their own thing. Their heavily textured arrangements constantly switch between smooth and abrasive at every opportunity. They’re one of the bands I heavily recommend catching live if the opportunity arises, certainly one of a kind.

Next on the stage we had the headliners Formal Sppeedwear, who had recently received a much-deserved shout-out from Hideo Kojima on his social media channels, giving the band a significant boost of attention. The stage started off in complete darkness; everybody was confused about what was going on. Before long, however, a flash of light filled the venue to reveal rectangular lights dangling down from the roof. These mimicked the cover of their newly released album, instantly showing the thought that had gone into such an incredible release night.

It’s quite impressive just how many adoring fans a band with 10,000 listeners has: being in that crowd, I felt like the only person who didn’t know every lyric word for word. This adoration of the band was further shown through the crowd instantly getting into it within the first song. This progressed throughout the night, and before long, the entire crowd turned into a sea of dance.

Beck Clewlow, their lead, had a stage presence that perfectly matched the crowd, joining in the gentle yet erratic dancing, yet also joining in on the quiet, fairly intimate aspects. Their music could also be described as fairly similar to this dancing, switching up between fairly laid-back aspects, yet every now and then finding the right time for a more dramatic moment. If there is one thing the band had right, it was balancing these shifts perfectly. The night carried on smoothly until, surprisingly, a saxophone player was brought onstage. Admittedly, she was tucked away at the back, not that it made much difference, however. The sound could be heard throughout the venue, brass pairing beautifully with the semi-experimental sounds being played.

The sounds of Sppeedwear are weird: every song sounds similar. Their uniqueness is built on slight differences in the sound, rather than major ones. This works particularly well in the album’s setting, yet sadly less well in a live atmosphere. Despite this, there was still one exception to this rule: ‘The Ballad of DCB’, which stood out as a clear favourite song among the crowd. This was understandably so, as it sounded like the lovechild of Talking Heads and Franz Ferdinand. Formal Sppeedwear are extremely deserving of a bigger platform, and it’s not a question of if they get one, but when.