Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 21/04/08

It's not a particularly alluring prospect on paper: Five grim looking chaps from Leeds University, proffering unfathomably doomy post-rock in black armbands and issuing albums accompanied with pamphlets of essays. Then there's that ghastly, eye-watering name: iLiketrains. iLiketrains?! Don't be put off though because what we have here is a progressive and decidedly ambitious outfit.

Whilst musically they don't stray too far from textbook mid-tempo post rock, (slo-mo arpeggios, death march drums, the faintest brushes of electronica) and may lack the wide-eyed wonder of say Explosions In The Sky or the pulverising, galactic reach of This Will Destroy You; their substitution of suggestive titles and reams of explicit artwork for lyrics and songs centred around genuine historical figures and events is a neat calling card in this most conservative of genres.

Whether or not iLiketrains do justice to their weighty subject matter is almost irrelevant. Can anyone truly convey the sheer scale and unspeakable tragedy of the Black Death or Great Fire of London in a five minute piece of music? Probably not. Where they do succeed though, via heart wrenching first person testimonies, is in giving each song a distinct purpose, sense of place and a richly evocative soundtrack to timeless tales of suffering and anguish.

Opening with "We Go Hunting" (on the Salem witch hunts, naturally), vocalist Dave Martin's rich baritone descends like the thick smog of old London and instantly shrouds the venue in gloom. Assuming the role of the possessed small town preacher intoning "This town is burning down" and with flames from their projections licking at the walls of the Barfly, it's startling in its searing intensity. The trick is repeated later on "Terra Nova", the bleak Antarctic landscape on the wall echoing the song's haunting "Great Scott! - this is an awful place" lyric to quite astonishing effect.

The band are far more active on stage than their stately recordings suggest, guitarist Guy Bannister every bit the fringe tossing Greenwood-a-like lead, as Richards, with thousand yard stare intact throughout, writhes behind the mic exorcising the gruesome confessionals as though they were his own. Admittedly, it's almost a bit too much over 45 minutes, unremittingly mournful, unapologetically bleak, Richards' three note vocal range becoming more than a little tiresome.

An unnamed 'new one' is a disaster as well and leaves the audience openly dismayed as to why they've unleashed something patently half formed when there is so much from their back catalogue to plunder. Nevertheless, their discipline as a unit and conviction win out; closing with "Spencer Perceval", it's central two note motif crashing down repeatedly in waves, iLiketrains prove categorically they can provide an evening of total escapism, though perhaps not always transporting you to places you would choose to visit.

by Jim Brackpool