Howling Bells return to Glasgow’s King Tut’s with their first new music since 2014, delivering a “pop noir” masterclass alongside high-octane support sets from Lady Jesus and Brighton’s The Roebucks.
Twenty years ago Australian outfit Howling Bells were ubiquitous. Their unrelenting tour schedule included support slots with the likes of Editors, The Futureheads, Placebo, The Killers and later Snow Patrol and Coldplay, and if their stardom seemed predestined at that time, it didn’t come without extensive hustle. In the two years either side of the release of their debut album the band was only off the road for two non-consecutive months. What’s more, that self-titled debut was bottled lightning; it emerged triumphant and perfectly realised, spilling out of a saturated and male-dominated indie rock scene with a deluge of uncanny pop noir. In the decades since, Howling Bells’ records have remained anachronistic, sounding always simultaneously ahead of their time and utterly timeless, largely due to singer Juanita Stein’s smoothly hypnotic way with melody, forever weaving a thread between familiar southern gothic and alternative dream pop. This year saw the release of the band’s first new music since 2014’s Heartstrings and, as if to prove old habits die hard, they returned to Glasgow’s King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut to play out tracks from the new record, Strange Life.
Glasgow outfit Lady Jesus got the night off to a modest start and then almost stole the show before it even began. Recent singles Work Smoothly and Born Again delivered a more raucous and expressive kind of rock ‘n’ roll than their previous material. Expanding their repertoire with gritty vocals, punchy keys and a rolling, driving conversation between the rhythm section, they launched into songs with an intriguing tension, sometimes ambling so that the bass was there before you even knew what’s happening. The set is a filthy, funky jam and they ran over schedule by 10 minutes which is no way to impress promoters or stage managers. Their friends in the front row loved it though and others were convinced by their extended closing wig out. Their 21st century take on psychedelic blues rock is nothing revelatory or even revolutionary, but Jesus, it’s nice to see the job getting done with such taste and passion.
The second support, on board for the full Strange Life tour, were Brighton quartet The Roebucks. They may have looked genteel but man, were they out to make a racket! 300 Fahrenheit had an old-time-rock’n’roll-meets-first-wave-punk-meets-2000s-indie-sleeze energy while He’s My Man paid tribute to singer-drummer Sophie Moloney’s love of The Boss with the capable air of Jack White producing a 60s girl group. Their cover of John Lee Hooker’s Dimples only added to the authenticity of their sound.
Howling Bells opened strongly with Blessed Night and Cities Burning Down, both obvious crowd favourites within their catalogue, immediately showcasing the distinctly melodic beauty of Juanita Stein’s clarion voice, and were received with so much joyful appreciation. It’s a rush to hear new music live for the first time too, and neither audience nor band were content with a nostalgia trip. Strange Life’s lead single Unbroken added grit and fuzzy bass to the band’s opening statement of intent; a song about the love, devotion and madness required to sustain a career in music.
A designated “old one”, Nightingale got off to a false start but it was the sort of endearing human glitch that makes live music what it is. There’s jeopardy to playing on stage in front of people, and the deeper audiences spiral into digital platforms, algorithmic taste and AI artists, the more we come to appreciate mistakes as proof of life.
Melbourne is a song that carries sentimentality in its free and easy groove; its jangly guitar pop masks middle-aged grief and hiraeth well. Setting Sun was dropped into the middle of the set like an eerie palate-cleanser, as if to reassure both band and audience that, ironically, the brighter musical moments are fleeting, while lilting Angel made only its second live outing under Stein’s explicit instruction “Don’t fuck it up!”
She kept to her usually minimal banter – partly to avoid the embarrassment of not being able to understand Scottish accents – but she didn’t shy away from articulating her deep frustration at the big issues plaguing humanity while she introduced her rage anthem, Sacred Land. As the peak of sonic intensity in the set, it swirled and crashed, a three-minute tempest, before subsiding abruptly. The calm after the storm, The Night Is Young showed Stein’s vocal at its most adventurous-but-contained, reminding everyone who saw the band back in the day just why they’d landed all those massive support slots; their sound was arena-ready from the off!
The encore featured a rare cover song, Neil Diamond’s Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon. It fell a little flat on the Tut’s audience but was a perfectly pleasant rendition. For better or worse, Stein has one of those voices that can’t be separated from her songs especially after 20-plus years, so when fans hear her, they really wanna hear those hits. Wrapping up with the angularity and aggression of Low Happening left everyone high on its timeless, astute songwriting. The band sounded like a pub rock version of Cocteau Twins as the song bounded along, exacting one final outpouring of appreciation from the audience.
The cohesion and connection of the band members is clearly evident, and going off the strength of tracks on Strange Life, and Glasgow’s reception, it doesn’t feel too optimistic to hope we might see Howling Bells with a more regular presence on the live circuit again. At least, somewhere between the feast-or-famine of their past touring schedules would be most welcome.
Words and pictures: Kendall Wilson @softcrowdclassic