alamos album launch, with popolo + bullet hell

Friday night saw the launch of Alamos' second album, 'Captain Indifferent Says, "Whatever"', with a gig at Dundee's Fat Sams. Support came from Popolo and Bullet Hell.

Popolo were up first, a fresh faced 4 piece from Dundee, Fife and Glasgow. They play short bursts of melodic, jerky instrumental "math" rock with tinges of Foals or Battles, for want of better reference points. None of the tunes outstay their welcome, with the band having the good sense to know not to stretch anything out for any longer than it needs to be - this was slightly disorientating when songs ended abruptly at their first show a couple of months ago, but only a couple of gigs later they have grown in confidence. Looking forward to the recordings being promised later in the summer.

Bullet Hell played next. Always a joy to watch, and it transpires a joy to photograph too with all of Kev's rawk! poses on full display. Bullet Hell make an almighty noise with just bass and drums, albeit with the bass amplified a second time with the sound manipulated towards that of a guitar. The best i can do for reference points is Motorhead, in terms of the relentless drive and heads down intensity. It's quite fun to watch a bass be played as if it was a guitar, without it sounding wrong, though that makes no sense to say. Sadly, Bullet Hell also currently do not have any recordings available.

Our hosts for the evening were Alamos, finally letting their second album free into the world after a year's wait. They've been playing the many of the songs around and about for over a year now, so they've had time to sink in for me - probably quite helpful as the sound is less immediate than on the first record - still all good though! The set was a mixture of old and new, so it was good to hear the hits dusted off. Fritz's bass was suitably booming, so much so that the vibrations knocked my pint off the ledge I'd rested it on... I've only had the chance to listen to the album once since picking up my copy, so it's a bit early to have something to say about it other than that I like it. You can listen to a couple of tracks from it and order the cd from Alamos' myspace.

Not sure how happy I am with most of the photos, I took quite a lot and maybe 1 in 5 were ok. My main complaint is that a lot of them came out grainy, or just slightly blurred. Often this hadn't shown up when I was setting up the shots or reviewing them on the camera itself, so there were quite a few that I had thought would come out well that didn't. I think this may largely be due to having to use fairly long shutter exposures and a low aperture to get sufficient light in. I guess I just need to find a way to work around it, or failing that persuade more bands to play in better-lit venues! I took one or two shots with a flash, but just didn't like the way they turned out.