The recent Hit The Deck festival had whet my appetite for some balls-out rock. The Marmozets did not disappoint…

Date: April 29, 2014

Venue: Bodega

Marmozets’ gigs are renowned for being chaotic – the five-piece from Bingley, Yorkshire, create absolute mayhem with their antics. So let’s skip forward to the very last song. Leading lady Becca Macintyre announces that “this is when things get messy”. And she’s not kidding.

The drums are taken from the stage and re-assembled in the heaving audience; one of the guitarists mounts the speaker stack – with some skill, bearing in mind its lofty position – before the command from Becca that all hell should be unleashed. Upon this instruction, the guitarist risks considerable injury by leaping from a good 18 feet onto an unoccupied space in the crowd, while the secondary guitarist flings himself off stage to join his cohorts in the maelstrom which is now the Bodega audience. Becca, damned if she’s missing out, soon joins in and it’s a riot soundtracked by discordant noise, scarred math rock and unmitigated hardcore.

Now let’s rewind a little. Marmozets are a hardcore band consisting of two sibling groups – three Macintyres and two Bottomleys. They make complicated-yet-melodic math rock, and if you’re unfamiliar with that particular genre, think Sheffield mathcore gonzo nutjobs Rolo Tomassi grappling with Sky Larkin and you’re kind of there.

Why Do You Hate Me? takes Sky Larkin’s anthemic rock and rewires it, while new track Cover Up is dedicated to Miley Cyrus. “We don’t need to take our clothes off to get noticed”, Becca mocks, before fully opening her lungs in a noise-fest full of complicated time sugnatures and snarling guitars.

Within the crowd and on stage, Marmozets are loud, complex and absolutely bonkers.