The Railway Inn - November 2005
On first impression, Dali's Cat look like a group of people who bumped into each other at a party and realised that between them they could play enough instruments to form a band. The dress sense of the three girls and two guys on stage ranges from ‘I wish I was as wacky as I looked’ to ‘I’m comfortable in this thanks’. The singer clutches the microphone and leans into the vocals like a true bubblegum punk princess, whilst the guitarists strum their instruments shyly, their expressions verging at times on boredom. The songs, with lyrics covering subjects as diverse as tortoises, gayness and demonic love, are characteristically loud, fast and laden with distortion. The drumming is energetic and bass guitar melodic and pacey but the overtone of the set is one of a slightly confused glam irony. The otherwise simple but basically competent post punk sound obscured at times by the in-gag banter between songs and forced girlie squeaks in the vocal lines. With more practice, a philosophical epiphany and a weekend at a corporate bonding boot camp, Dali's Cat could find something original to say. As it stands, you’ve seen this before… done better. Die So Fluid, by contrast, are a well knit, united act. Consisting of a drummer, guitarist and impossibly goth bassist/singer who looks like she was born wearing
the make-up. They create a massive wall of sound and in the small music room of the Railway Inn a level of volume so intense that only the deaf or masochistically insane venture anywhere near the speaker stacks. The strong vocals, violently heavy guitar, all-pervading drums and malicious bass lines mesh together, creating an epic quality to the music. But, perhaps because of the lack of depth in the band instrumentally, the melodies are flat and the sound, as a result, is too mundane to hold any lasting interest. Die So Fluid are accomplished musicians and play well together. They create a rich, professional metal sound that bands with twice as many members cannot achieve. But, if they are determined to continue with their current set up, it will take a more inventive use of their resources and greater imagination in their material to properly set them apart from the bulk of the well rehearsed heavy metal crowd.
