Hitting Hull’s Le Temporaire for Debaser’s Spring Thing series on April 16 with a solid setlist of music from top to bottom, The Luyas, along with support from Future States and You’ll Never Get To Heaven, brought a night of music so consistently good it was easy to forget it was a Sunday night.
Opening the night on a clanging note, Future States brought a powerfully understated set full of shocking solos and a sense of fun so contagious it was hard not to join in. The lo-fi rock coming from their amplifiers kicked things off with a set way better than your typical opening set, and their shy but friendly manner with the audience made it extremely inviting.
You’ll Never Get To Heaven
Upping the visual quotient for the night, the electronic duo turned on their projector and Launchpad, and took the crowd for a journey. While giving stirring visuals pulled from old European movies that blended perfectly with the sound, both sides of the audio-visual equation elevated each other well. A very subdued performance from the band themselves, the focus was definitely on the music and without a doubt they brought their best out for Sunday’s show.
The Luyas
While it can often be tiring or even annoying to hear a band play only new material, when a band puts out an album as strong as the Luyas’ latest release Human Voicing, it’s more than welcomed. Playing through the album in unique order along with an extra track they brought the intense album to life with their passionate performance and surprising ability to recreate sounds live.
Nailing the addictive bass dance grooves of “Dream In Time” while singing, the band kicked the crowd into dancing, with cheers coming in just as the bass emerged from the wall of sound intro. The sonic flights between guitars and keys throughout the song translated amazingly well live making the excited delivery all the more enjoyable.
The stop and go drums of “Beating Bowser” gave a fun head-rocking moment for the night, before the band jumped into the chugging track. Jessie Stein’s playful but direct vocals pushed aggression of the song while also keeping the energy at an all-time high. Moving to contrast this on the more relaxed and synth heavy “Dream Of Love” the band swayed and brought some impressive French horn playing to the set, using their set up to take the sound in some interesting directions before Stein took out a mini synth herself.
Bringing the mixed drums, and groovy electronics of “Your Name’s Mostly Water” on Stein even called on sound man Phil to kick up the bass line in the mix, pulling him into the band calling out “Phil on knobs.” The play between the drum machine and drums made for a fun layered sound that the rest of the band grooved on for a cool break from the album play-through.
The sunny notes of “All Of Everything” were just as deceiving live as on record to lighten the mood before the clashing sounds of its chorus, made all the more visceral by the feedback and Stein’s emotion behind the mic. This continued on the dark and downbeat road of “Fed To The Lions” bringing one last slow moment before the night’s finale.
Stein’s intertwining melodies played of the bubbling synth and thunderous cymbals on “Never Before” which the band announced they hilariously had never played live before, and would also never be able to appropriately claim again. The ringing of guitars and cacophony of sound from all ends of the room reminded the crowd of how far the Luyas can push the envelope sonically, even live, ending the night on its most ambitious moment yet.
SETLIST:
No Domination
Self-Unemployed
Dream In Time
Beating Bowser
Dream of Love
Your Name's Mostly Water
All of Everything
Fed To the Lions
Never Before