As soon as she breezes onto stage and slings her Jazzmaster over her shoulders you know Freya Beer is a different proposition from the normal singer/songwriter package.
An elfine, glam goth goddess packing a punch with a panache that only comes from having confidence in your product. Needless to say, she doesn’t have to try too hard to keep the audience’s attention.
Opening with title track ‘Beast‘, its widescreen chorus begs for the open spaces of a larger venue. Set highlights ‘The Calm Before the Storm‘ and ‘Arms Open Wide‘ are driven by a pounding rhythm section and layered guitars which provide the perfect platform for Beer’s luscious vocals. With a such small back catalogue at her disposal, the whole album gets an airing tonight, finishing off with a quirky take on T-Rex classic ‘21st Century Boy‘. It’s a credit to the quality of her songwriting that the cover was probably the weakest track of the night.
Cut loose from the constraints of the recorded medium, live, the album tracks are huge! Whilst on record the vocals tend to dominate, here, we get to appreciate the intricacies and power of the tracks as they were no doubt intended.
For the uninitiated, Freya occupies similar melodramatic musical territory to Anchoress or Anna Calvi with a liberal sprinkling of gothic noir courtesy of the Bad Seeds. It’s a pretty impressive proposition and Freya more than lives up to the billing. Catch her while you can.
Words and pictures Calum Mackintosh @ayecandyphotography