08/00 FusioN magazine

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animalhouse @ the garage

4 july 2000

After recent comments from readers that I tend to be a little light on content in my reviews, I decided to play safe and took along a real journalist to help me (he works for the BBC and everything). He's more used to interviewing Ken Livingstone than Ken from S-Club 7 (???? - Ed) but a professional hack nonetheless. What a waste of time that was. He failed to meet the deadline, and only succeeded in getting very drunk and nearly getting into a fight, which I might add I had to get him out of. F***ing journalists! So you're stuck with my thoughts again. What can I say!

Animalhouse are the rebirth of early nineties Oxford-based indie kids Ride, and consequently the place was packed out with dishevelled looking longhairs all in black and all the wrong side of twenty seven (or the right side depending on how you look at it). The first part of the gig my drunken friend and I spent trying to decide how old the band members were and who was the baldest. The music is still very Indie but seems to have picked up a bizarre new synthesised sound.

The constant appearance of odd noises throughout the songs suggests that somebody in the band got a new Roland for their birthday and is still learning how to get it to make funny sounds.

The music reminded me of Jesus Jones crossed with a little Pink Floyd, but lacking the energy of the former and the innovation of the latter. The Garage is a small venue usually easy to ignite. Animalhouse had clearly pissed on their own kindling. The song 'Animal' came close to getting the crowd dancing, but even I made it to the front and was barely forced to sway by the surging crowd. Lacklustre. That's the word. Lacklustre.

Giles Pie

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