Live Review from Post-Valentine Rock Show:
Nothing
Left the Door
Dirt soil
抱
永在期待
Although a relative newcomer, Nitrate counts among its members several veterans (and I mean veterans) of the scene, such as frontman Egg, which would explain why the band describes its music as Brit Pop, as all of Egg’s past bands do.
Kicking off with a high energy number “Nothing“, Nitrate marks a clear departure from Egg’s signature punk/mod style with something with a much bigger sound, with vocal backup, heavy use of the high-hat and an underlying riff played pretty much throughout the entire song (one of the luxuries of having 2 guitars). You can still feel the punk/mod roots, just much more elaborate. “Nothing” was followed by my favourite track of the set, “Left the Door“, a dark, slow number which style reminded me of something Babyshambles would do. Again, probably on account that the guitarist, Bernard, being a very accomplished classical guitarist, the song had a very nice underlying riff and fills “that just works”. The rest of the set consisted of a couple of slow numbers, two of which were in Cantonese, again, something which I do not recall Egg ever did.
All in all it was a very enjoyable set, it was good to see the influences of a different line up – Egg played rhythm rather than the bass, and Jim was not the drummer (again, another “never” as far as I can remember). The sound was big and elaborate, filled with nice guitar works which did not take over, oh and the drummer really likes his high-hat (which is not a criticism, just an observation). However, probably on account of it being quite new, the band could definitely tidy things up a bit and be much tighter… and, most noticeable in the first song, the bass player needs to step up on his backing vocal, which was markedly out of tune.
-Hazel-Rah
