In the week that the debut album by Arctic Monkeys has sealed their status as the new crown princes of pop, it may seem a bit early to start talking about the next big shift in the musical landscape. But while the dominant influence on new groups in recent years has been the Britpop legacy of Blur and Oasis, there now seems to be a new wave of bands, with a more high-flown, Radiohead-style progressive rock agenda. As if curious to see how this other species behaves, various members of Arctic Monkeys were in the audience at the Garage to see Secret Machines put on an impressive show that was the opposite of pithy, street-poetic, northern English pop.
The trio, who come originally from Dallas but have been resident in New York since 2001, arrived on stage amid a swirling mist of dry ice, flickering strobes and ghostly electronic tones. Backlit by a sudden blaze of white lights they began with I Hate Pretending, a new song from their forthcoming third album, Ten Silver Drops. As Josh Garza pounded out a huge, skittering drum beat and Brandon Curtis supplied a psychedelic organ part, his brother Benjamin played guitar and sang a dreamlike lyric about being watched by an undercover cop. “I know he can’t see me, and does he even care?” The woozy, psychedelic chord changes and slightly dismembered framework of the song was pure Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, not a bad template by any means, albeit a little obvious on this occasion.
With five out of the twelve songs in the set list taken from the new album, it became apparent that the band has continued to develop both melodically and in their fondness for long and winding instrumental passages. Sometimes there was a little too much meandering. With the poor sightlines of the Garage to contend with and the musicians being picked out only as gloomy silhouettes throughout much of the show, there was a lot of murky atmosphere if rather too little visual detail.
But as Garza ploughed into the gigantic, chopping beat of First Wave Intact and Benjamin crouched, jumped and bashed his guitar with a windmilling arm action, there was enough drama and musical firepower to suggest that the Machines won’t be a secret for much longer.