Reviews

The single launch at the Academy 3 was packed out and they pulled off the impossible that night by forcing a glockenspiel to play an integral part of a rock and roll set. So what was in store for their return to the rugged charms of the Roadhouse?

The band kicked the night off with that trademark 'glock 'n' roll', including not one glockenspiel but two in this eloquent exchange of dynamics; apparently, it was creative mainstay Tony’s way of saying 'pleased to meet you, this is what we do and it’s a little bit wacky'.

The highlight of the onstage spectacle has to be Tony’s inability to sing an ordinary melody; on paper it wouldn’t work and it shouldn’t work, but, in a way that seems to sum up Doris completely, it actually works brilliantly.

Seamlessly gliding in and out of key, this atonal front man takes his songs to another place, a place far away, a place us regular boring folk can vaguely make out after a seriously inadvisable 20 pints. It’s difficult to explain how something can sound so out there and strange but so clear and comprehensible at the same time.

Underneath that peculiar wall of sound lies the clarity of intelligent structures and catchy hooks. There’s not a chance of it dropping into any zeitgeist-surfing trends and it’s all the better for it, as it will last a lot longer than most of the current disposable ghosts that haunt our music scene.

They ended their set with the eccentrically catchy track, Alligator, which is set to be the band’s second release. A combination of beefy hooks, delightfully messy guitar and authoritatively powerful vocals, it ignited the crowd into a frenzy of flailing adrenaline driven chaos and should mean they make just as big an impact with single number two.

Who knows? A Boy Called Doris might just turn out to be the next big thing.