Sorry - Wunderhorse
The music can be uncomfortable, unsettling, but simultaneously honeyed and sweet. The juxtaposition is what makes it such an engaging act to see and hear.
After interruptions with the March 2020 tour, and then postponements of their October 2021 tour, Sorry have at last made their overdue trip to East Anglia. Having played here a few times before, once with Fat White Family and another time with Shame – they’re not strangers to the city.
The gig opens with tour support from grungy alt rock band (the project of Jacob Slater) Wunderhorse. Jacob is strikingly the guiding force; his performance is a conduit of raw emotion. While blending slow builds with grimy shrieking guitar lines, it doesn’t feel too predictable and it doesn’t take on anything too reminiscent – there’s blending of Pavement and other grunge, slacker compatriots; but it’s hardly painted on their sleeves. One track takes on a mathematical angularity to it, the guitars growl in the background. It provokes a curious new take on the genre they’re operating in. Each song shows off a different fine-tuned snarl, but also a capability for more tender melody lines.
Sorry follow on shortly afterwards with their indefinable blend of triphop, post rock and electronic. Opening with slurry sax hit ‘Rock Round The Clock’. Their aesthetic consistency asserts itself immediately. Their more-than familiar deadpan disassociation sits comfortable with the mood. There’s no significant crowd interaction, no clap-with-me, or banter. It’s just a tight performance in the truest form.
Despite being a band with a quality of shyness, they play with an impressive sincerity. They retain intensity without force, it’s not that they’re playing quick, with fast, angry drops to manufacture intensity, it’s instead a bi-product of the music. The music can be uncomfortable, unsettling, but simultaneously honeyed and sweet. The juxtaposition is what makes it such an engaging act to see and hear. While there’s emotional weight in each track, there’s a silliness, or a ‘isn’t this dumb?’ it encapsulates that typical youthful trepidation. Not to mention, Voodoos’ compactness creates an intimacy which only serve this concept better. The disorientating beats and dreamlike dread fills the room with ease, the compact closeness of the space creates a a sense of fraught confinement.
Even though it’s obvious they’ve got the ‘big hits’ (‘Starstruck’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, ‘Cigarette Packet’), it’s not as though the quality of the other tracks is dulled. Instead, they fill out the atmosphere and mostly show-off the bands curiosity of sound. It’s when hearing the band’s older music next to the new that you can detect the shifts in style – the reemphasis and embracing of other sounds and the evolution of the group as artists.
Altogether, the gig was an excellent sold-out show to get out to. Sorry are a band on the precipice of much bigger things – and while there may not be a whirlwind of force behind them, they’re undoubtedly making strong headway without compromise.
