Spector, Superfood and Fickle Friends // The Haunt, Brighton - Review

After a day of free activities courtesy of Topman in Brighton, the festivities continued into the night at the popular nightclub, The Haunt.

Kicking off the night after a relatively safe DJ set were Fickle Friends, a local band I had not come across yet. They were fantastic. The guitar was catchy on all of the songs they played in their short set, and the vocals were melodic too. They were not shy to speak to their home crowd, and despite not having an album out, were the most talkative and confident band of the night. More from them soon, I hope. One to watch for.

Superfood shortly followed, and continued where they left off in the venue late last year. The set was slick, with all the singles played and a select few from their album. The crowd bobbed along to "Bubbles" and the closing "Superfood" (self-titled, well spotted) was ravenous in reponse from the crowd. Exciting music for an excitable crowd, it only seemed fit that they played tonight.

Credit: NME

If Fickle Friends were the pleasing new find on the menu, and Superfood were the filling, sumptuous second course, Spector were the disappointing desert of the night. Disappointing on the outside to the extent that they look moderately appealing at a glance (this is a band that have a hopefully ironic calendar every year), something like a chocolate fondant perhaps. On the inside, instead of being filled with luscious chocolate, you find liquid sandpaper – easier to digest than normal sandpaper, but still thoroughly unappealing. Whilst old songs really did go down a treat, such as “Celestine” and fan favourite “Chevy Thunder”, it was hard to tell if this was on their own merits, or due to them standing side by side with set fillers from the new album. Lyrics were never strong on the first album, but early glimpses are that they are even worse: “On thoughtful balcony, it’s so hard to find moonlight these days, I'm sorry” and “You're running from a 2am kiss, and nothing seems to turn you on, I hope you make it home”. We hope you are sorry Fred, because that was dreadful.

More often than not, there were some Depeche Mode-esque synth parts that they slung in to the songs, such as the opening song “Lately It’s You (Moth Boys)” which featured a jarring, completely indecipherable synth-vocal chorus. They finished with “All The Sad Young Men”, their newly released track, which is the direction we all hoped they were heading in, which ever so nearly sparked a mosh in the crowd. I think this was due to the excitement over it actually being an okay song. To quote “Never Fade Away”, Fred sings “if you give me the word, I’ll start fading away”. You have my word Fred, fade away, please.