Hello 2019 FUR, Caro, Ugly and Talk Show bring diverse guitar kicks to night three of Hello 2019

Night three of four of our annual new band showcase series Hello 2019 at Shoreditch boozer The Old Blue Last and, as we cross the halfway mark, there’s a point being proven here tonight. Yes, this evening might be the most classic ‘indie’ line-up of the bunch. All the bands have a fairly traditional guitar / bass / drums set up; no-one’s serving up extended bassoon solos or trying to wildly reinvent the wheel. But give even the most cursory listen to tonight’s four stars and you’ll find sounds and attitudes as different as night and day.

First up are Yala! Records-affiliated newies Talk Show. Though currently based in south London, they hail, they say, from “all over” and it’s the all over-ness that shines through more necessarily than any larger influence of the capital’s grubbiest quarter. Singer Harrison Swann has the wired, antagonistic energy of a Northern lad at pub kicking out time; veering between earnest emoting and cocky strutting, he’s got a Marmite quality that’ll piss off and draw in in equal measure. Musically, meanwhile, the band land somewhere in a genre we’ll christen Bovver Boy New Wave. Read: ’80s, post-punk-tinged darkness with a slight threat of a punch in the face.

Conversely, Ugly seem to have turned up straight from school. Two of them are in shirts and uniform ties, the other two in geography teacher knitted tank tops. It’s a look, but thankfully their King Krule-esque scattershot tunes are already getting the grades. Fresh from releasing their debut EP ‘Sunday School’ through Sports Team’s new label Holm Front at the tail end of last year, the likes of the excellently-titled ‘The Last Supper at the Regal Wetherspoon’ show a knack for careering, jangling melodies that feel on the edge of running away, while singer Samuel Goater’s throaty croon has clearly taken a leaf out of Archy Marshall’s book. They end on the wild spaghetti western ride of ‘Redemption, On The Road to Damascus’: a seven-minute epic that, tbh, could do with a little trimming but shows they’re not lacking in ideas.