Reviews

Not for them guitars and a meat-and-potatoes attitude, this band wear make-up (and that’s just the boys), employ plenty of electro with their guitars and drums and have hints of that Girls Aloud ‘machine tooled pop’ edge that indie boys secretly hanker after but can’t quite admit to liking.

More fool them because (We Are) Performance deliver sonically, aesthetically and with a fire that is positively goose-bump inducing.

It helps that they have an edgy front man in Joe Stretch, twitchingly reminiscent of Ian Curtis in his prime, but with an impassioned new romantic vocal style that compliments Laura and Billie Marsden’s superb angel voiced backing vocals.

With a thumping electro sound vaguely reminiscent of Cabaret Voltaire or Soft Cell circa Art of Falling Apart, (We Are) Performance have a scary dynamism that most bands would kill for.

Electro pop? The band themselves prefer the term ‘Death Pop’, whatever that means, but I’m guessing it means that this band are to die for, and, boy, did they prove it. The gig-goers of Manchester have got some new musical heroes.