Tigercub at Scala

Seaside town Brighton has given us many bands from The Kooks and Fujiya & Miyagi to The Go! Team and Royal Blood, and in recent years, Tigercub.

Frontman Jamie Hall stands on stage, his face shadowed by long locks of hair. The dark rhythms pulse into the very core of one’s body, bouncing from the floor, through the feet and into the head. Antiseptic, from 2015 EP Repressed Semantics, is a nod to 90s grunge rock, which is the case with most of Tigercub’s music. With the outro, the trio jam intensely on their instruments, bottlenecking on bass and electric guitar, while the drums thrash away. Performing tracks from their 2016 debut album, Abstract Figures in the Dark, the group veer directly into dark post and alternative rock. Serial Killer has tones of Radiohead, with an acute likeness to Royal Blood too, while By Design changes the approach, introducing a sound that has more interesting acoustic dimensions to it. Control, with its light, attractive sampler and slowed-down backing instruments, feels like the most noteworthy song of the set.

Contentiously, bands and venue workers still continue to ignore sound technicality issues. It is understandable a good portion of the audience are perhaps inebriated, but that is no excuse to raise volumes to potentially hearing-damaging levels. Scala is not a huge venue, and Tigercub’s set would have suited a more cavernous space, yet the problem still stands of when event organisers will realise the risks they are creating and take a stand.

It is clear the trio have good musicianship, but there is a lacking in the evolution of their songs, with tracks blurring together in the frantic, hammering noise rock, making it a somewhat unremarkable experience, though a special appearance by Blood Red Shoes’ Steven Ansell had a cool appeal for fans. When Tigercub lean away from their abrasive and jarring similar-sounding patterns, their music starts to sound a lot more interesting, and ultimately promising.

Selina Begum
Photos: Mike Garnell

For further information and future events visit the Tigercub website here.

Watch the video for The Divided States of Us here: