Venus Bogardus at Moles, Bath, Jan, 2008
Venus Bogardus is Bath’s home-grown Art Rock band that made it to the last Glastonbury not long after forming. They have been very active, playing various festivals, touring Germany, and now have the distinction of headlining Moles on a Saturday night.
One quickly sees why the mildly rampant success: though VB has the image and the song subjects of a cerebral art band, they rock with a capital R on stage.
The engine that powers this left-bank Who is the guitar of James Reich, who eschews the jangle and lo-fi clank of many art bands for deliciously overdriven long tones, penetrating treble and heart-stopping chunk. He achieves this with two or three Fender guitars in different tunings (thus critics will invariably describe a Sonic Youth influence), a funky looking beat-up old nameless amp and just one pedal. Pretty organic.
The energetic and precise drumming of Obaro Evuarherhe (I think we’re all on a first name basis here) adds immensely to the drive and power of Venus Bogardus; in fact, we wish that Obaro would cut loose even more and not worry too much about keeping that boom-chukka beat.
He could easily do that because Hannah Levbarg’s deep-toned, precise bass lines can anchor the band well enough on their own.
James and Hannah both sing, sometimes one or the other, but mostly together, in the manner of X. James has a voice with timbre to it, sometimes sounding even like er, um... Peter Gabriel, while Hannah is a bit of a shrieker a la X-Ray Spex. Together, though, they are a winning combination with the power to hold their own amidst the instrumental sounds and to let us actually hear some of the lyrics. It’s a novel concept for live shows; perhaps the idea will catch on.
And Venus B has lyrics that are not embarrassing to hear (another novel rock concept) inspired by unusual subjects – like early 20th century Dadaist suicide Jacques Rigaut.
Their songs are very melodic in a pop way, the very beautiful Autoclave one of my favourites, but there were quite a few others in the set that caught one’s attention.
So what we have here is a truly postmodern band that embodies the best in English pop tradition. In a world were all information is available, they can take bits from other bands without having to take the band’s ideologies as well. Venus Bogardus combines highbrow intellect with catchy but not insipid pop melodies and backs it up with visceral, edgy and sonically exciting rock sound. A brain and a groin; why, it's almost human.
(www.charleyspace.co.uk)