Lørdag 10.august
In an age of bland, acceptable pop music and indistinguishable R&B artists who are more brand than music, it is important that bands who are doing something different get a place to stand. A music festival should be more than entertainment. So, Heave Blood & Die, an inventive five-piece from Tromsø, were a good choice for the roster at this year’s festival, still riding the wave of the release of their fourth album, “Burnout Codes”, in January.
Their music is fascinating and uncomfortable to listen to, and although they are operating in a fairly limited musical space, it is also surprisingly varied. So far, so good. They have been described as post-punk and there were certainly punk sensibilities in the raw, cut-down vocal performance from Karl Løftingsmo Pedersen, which did not change much from piece to piece. Standing in front of the mic, his hair falling just above his eyes, his mouth hanging loose around the grill, he almost shouted out the words. There was some anger here, some vitriol, some menace. “I want your skulls” he sang in “Warsaw”, and you could believe that he meant it.
The other principle trace of punk music was the solid backbeat from drummer Kenneth Mortensen, tight as a can, totally on the beat. Even when the music slipped, easily, naturally into more experimental passages, polyrhythmic and chaotic, he was there, holding the band together, setting them free to weave. In step with him was Luna Storeide on bass, who did not stand still for the whole set, bending her back, waving her instrument around like a weapon, dancing around her space stage left.
Apart from this, we should avoid classifying the music. The band used variations in texture and rhythm, changes of tone, very well. The front line of synth and two guitars provided a range of dense textures, dirges, ambient noises, and more melodic passages. Just like “Warsaw”, “Dog Days”, the single from the new album, got a longer instrumental treatment live. This showed some confidence and ambition, which was exciting. Marie Sofie Mikkelsen on synth often took the lead lines here, and it was that or the guitar lines of Jonas Helgesen Kuivalainen that would decide the tone of the each number, particularly in the longer instrumental sections. Sometimes, the synth thickened the music around it; at other times it rose above the backdrop, wailing, crackling. Mikkelsen’s face twisted and contorted as she wrung sounds out of the device in front of her, sometimes hanging off the keyboard full length. Kuivalainen was the perfect foil to Pedersen. Pedersen generally played at the bottom end, with thick chords on the bottom four strings or rumbling arpeggios. Kuivalainen’s playing was more open and experimental. In a different style of music, you’d have called it decorative or lyrical, but that’s not the space HBD are operating in.
Overall, the impact of the music was just short of oppressive. With the blurred, distorted cityscapes projected behind the band, the impression was of a world in which we were all trapped in some discomfort and which the band were explaining to us, not to make us feel better, but so that we could feel the full extent of our pain. There is a delicate balance in play in their music which the band applied with skill. Obviously, some of that is down to the song-writing and arrangements, but they had to pull it off, making the transitions work in their episodic music and giving the vocal parts room to breathe, to give Pedersen’s rough voice space so that it landed like a punch.
An impressive and accomplished set from a band on the up-and-up as they expand their range of musical styles, but never losing sight of their voice. 4.5/6
Text: Alex Maines
Photography: Anne-Marie Forker
