Review by James Winter-Samuel 
Image Courtesy of Wrongpop
It’s very, very cold outside and the way things generally are when it’s like this, people tend to stay in the warmth of their own homes. Thankfully, this has not stopped the Wrongpop faithful from venturing out to enjoy one of the strongest line-ups Stoke has seen for a good while. The place is full and happy, expectant of a bill that promises much and will deliver more.
Don Vito are a late addition to Wrongpops already stellar line-up. Placing themselves on the dancefloor a la Lightning Bolt and inviting the assembled throng to share their performance space almost as if the band need the audience to perform, like some voyeuristic parasite. Song titles are meaningless and those songs seem to snake into one another, coiling and twisting like an aggravated boa constrictor. Off kilter, skittish stop start rhythms combine with rolling grooves to great effect, for when these guys hit that groove, it nearly takes your head off. That’s a good thing.
Lamo seem rusty. Seeming like a band who haven’t played in a year, and deciding to pick up their instruments and just dive straight into a gig, crash landing but coming up unscathed. Maybe slightly in awe of the other bands they share the bill with, which the lead singer embarrasingly tells us they worship, the bass heavy duo rattle a few teeth and grind away with a youthful exuberance. If this is Lamo at their rustiest, I can’t wait to see what they are like at their best!
That Fucking Tank! Good band name. Good band. As soon as the first notes are wrung out of the guitar, they bombard you with a repetition of riffs and fret-noodlery and controlled but powerful drumming. No vocals. They don’t need them. The riffs are so huge that anything resembling a vocal line would get swallowed up by the mass of mudslide like power riffs. Another member of the Don Vito like stop/start brigade, it’s as it the duo seem to rely on telepathy when arriving upon new rhythms to contort and reshape to their liking. Excellent!
Finally Part Chimp take to the stage with all the laid back cool that most bands would kill for. They plug in, take their places, and then an unleash absurd explosion of noise that rumbles off the stage and through the room. It’s like some sort of sludge rock ‘n’ roll party in here as the audience lurch and sway to the grooves but the members of the band are unaware, focused on the task at hand, which is to basically obliterate every venue they can with riff after riff of bomb like detonation. This is thunderous stuff and I’m surprised the bar upstairs hasn’t landed in our laps by now. Part Chimp have mastered the ability to create amazingly heavy heavy songs that don’t rely upon any basic structure or conform to any genre but still retain an accessability that will appeal to a broader spectrum of open minded music fans. Quality, Quality stuff across the board, it’s a shame Stoke will not see a gig like this again for quite some time.
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