Dutch Uncles at Rough Trade East

Underground indie rockers Dutch Uncles lent their odd time signatures and melody-driven rhythms to the public at Rough Trade East last week. Adopting elements from genres such as math rock, and drawing inspiration from influences from The Smiths to Talking Heads, the band has successfully mastered an endearing musical style that is quintessential to indie culture.

With this in mind, it was no surprise to members of the audience when the band launched into Bellio, a loud and penetrating song with a very prominent 80s sound. It was immediately clear from the start that the band were immensely comfortable with combining a rock and electro sound to achieve an excellent result. Threads was another track which was especially representative of the group. It was clear to see from a live performance that there was cohesive chemistry between the members as they played the xylophone together.

Their new song Godboy, was not as immediately enjoyable as the rest. It was dreary and quite out of place in the set list. Nometo nevertheless won the crowd back through Duncan Wallis’s interesting, yet entertaining dance moves. Brio was the final song, and allowed the guys to flaunt their mastery of unusual time signatures to great effect. With an abrupt outro, the band thanked the audience and definitely left them wanting more.

Rahul Bahal

For further information and future events visit Dutch Uncles’ website here.