Even before a note is played, someone in tonight’s sold out crowd gives voice to the question on many a mind: Isosceles, where have you been? We get no definitive explanation for the hiatus, only the reassurance that it’s nice to have them back. Whatever its cause, the time-out has provided at least one clear benefit: the glut of art-school indie-pop types that swamped Glasgow post-Franz has since thinned, affording Isosceles a renewed freshness, their sound now borderline anachronistic in the best possible sense. Their new-wave-tinged set is flecked with hiccups, but none so distracting that they mar a delightful return.
But, as the band themselves note, they’re hardly tonight’s main attraction. That would be the animated trio unorthodoxly inquiring of Nice 'n' Sleazy, ‘Are you ready to sushi!?’ A large part of Shonen Knife’s appeal stems from the friction between their cutesy surface shtick and the bad-ass punk energy crackling from their amps. The scrappy charm of their earliest recordings is now fully metamorphosed into slick rock n roll, happily divorced from any musical developments out-with their day-glo bubble. Free Time features heavily, but it’s Super Group’s title track that furnishes the night with its highlight; until, that is, an Osaka Ramones encore, which sees them barrel through a trio of songs by Joey and the gang, hopped up, revved up, and ready to go.
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