Infest Festival 2010 - Day 3 (Sunday) @ University of Bradford

Infest Festival

Day 3 - Sunday

29.08.2010

@

University of Bradford

Student Union

Early starters PARALOX (a postponement due to one of the duet needing hospital treatment) do well to start a sway with their now-branded, saccharine-sweet power pop. Easy on the ear and ultra-accessible, they are proof that pop music can house talent that thankfully lingers outside its more mainstream scene.

The inconsistency in PATENBRIGADE:WOLFF’s set does nothing to deter how ambitious their synthesizers sound. This notion, combined with just how weird and wonderful their song-writing capabilities are and in the way their machines sing, they both create and destroy their self-made distortion-ridden, and at times cerebral rip-tide that does little to hide the harsh undercurrent of malicious intent.

Whoever genre-typed this candy-coated Canadian as minimalistic seriously needs a lesson in basic human senses; as AYRIA has nothing musically-minimal about her. Enchanting, energy inspiring and on occasion tooth-decayingly sweet, Ayria’s stomp-a-minute set comes to a close far too swiftly and so leaves the Infest gathering hungry for more.

Thomas Rainer’s NACHTMAHR take the idea of Austrian imperialist militia and mercilessly ram it down our throats! After the release of last year’s ‘Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit,’ it has been ensured that Nachtmahr have been on the list of acts to witness in the live environment, and the sea of Nachtmahr flags confirms this confidently. Declaring that ‘La Chupacabra’ is performed due to mass
demand, and being joined on stage by the UK’s own Uberbyte’s Richard for a mass chant-a-thon, Infest has done well at keeping the best until last.

Known to sound on record like a project that emerged right out of Cubase, it has been assumed that PROJECT PITCHFORK seemed ineffective coming out of the stereo, but live, they are a totally different type of animal. For this weekend’s finale, we finally see Bradford University’s concert hall bursting at the seams whilst Peter Spilles coarsely directs the trio through a career spanning and at times intimately interacts with his fans tightly pressed against the bar. Project Pitchfork were set to electrify and they do just that showing that this aging band can still sound fresh and successfully evolve and mutate with the times.

Reviewed & Photography by Rhys Heal