Chemtrails: Toe-Tapping Joy

Wednesday night saw me taking in a new venue over in Halifax to go and catch Chemtrails. The venue, The Grayston Unity, is a fabulously welcoming space, well run and friendly, and everything a bar/vvenue should be. It is so vital that grassroot venues exist, as all bands have to cut their teeth somewhere, and It’s in venues like this that I’ve seen bands starting out that went on to become behemoths like Radiohead and Oasis, for example. I feel it's so important that if you like live music, you support the venue in your town that supports the grassroots.

There is a fabulous moment in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Gene Wilder limps out towards the waiting crowd and suddenly falls into a forward roll—Ta Da!  I was reminded of this when watching Manchester-based Chemtrails, who’d snuck over the Pennines to Halifax. The band took the stage, all as you often see: a couple of guitars, bass, drums, and some synth/keyboards. They pitch into the first song, and then suddenly, Ta Da, they are off into a different space, blasting out fizzy post punk scuzzy garage pop with a side of sci-fi quirkiness for good measure.

They create some serious grooves; it’s all feet-tappingly danceable, with double singers Mia and Laura jousting the lyrics and vocal harmonies between them. The riffs don’t stop blasting out over the driving and muscular rhythm section that creates the foundations for Mia and Lauren to do their thing. I hear loads of influences, but they have everything from Gang of Four to the B52’s and all things in between fast forwarded to the here and now.

The tracks come bouncing along thick and fast, with Detritus Andronicus, Bang Bang, and Superhuman Superhighway being the picks for me of the tracks off the new album The Joy of Sects that they played live. The great thing about it is you don’t need to win a golden ticket to see Chemtrails; just get out and catch them on tour, toe-tapping joy guaranteed.

The Chemtrails played the The Grayston Unity, Halifax