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Orphans and Vandals, The Black Lodge Band, Winterhours + Wise Children @ The Railway, Winchester

Regrettably, my legs and brain fail to function and so I miss a fair chunk of the Wise Children set. I wander in, clutching a small, wide glass of golden Old Faithful and witness the pretty-as-a-corpse acoustic, sinister delights of the tempting two-piece, cursing my spindly limbs and watery head-jelly as I should’ve been able to wallow in the delights for longer if I weren’t so crap. With oaky acoustic work and the twinkly, shiny female backing vocals, Wise Children are a pretty bunch from the inside out, with a growing black blotch on the warm horizon that threatens to invade their beauty. For this reason, they have a weight behind their style that other lo-fi acts can only hope for.

Second act are Winchester favourites, Winterhours, previously known as Alex & The Ligers. As humble as ever, they are the most artistically unpredictable of the acts for the night, as they have come prepared with a loose framework in which to paint across and generally give up on a track once it has naturally closed up. Once again creating a journey-like sound that surges across open plains and occasionally fighting through heavy dirge, the venue’s inability to pick out the finer sounds actually heightens the experience, as their strength is less to do with the technicalities and lyrics of a song and more about the wider picture; the drones and the washes of audio. All in all, it’s thoroughly enjoyable.

Now that the soul and bones have been nicely lubricated, the penultimate act for the night up the stakes and take the night into a louder, more startling direction. Breaking through the clouds of noise that Alex and the Lygers had spent the entire set layering, The Black Lodge Band strike hard, with shrill vocals and deep, rumbling drums. Filling the middle ground, the frontman’s piano work is spliced with touches of classical modes and is slightly reminiscent to early Queen. Combined with the dicey and often tripped-out guitar work that goes some way to fill the gap of an absent bass, the result is a sort of Muse outfit that has been put through a grinder and can now be found in a freakshow circus of sensory delight. It truly is something, and the guys are clearly enjoying it, with what seems to be a relaxed camaraderie between all three, firing banter to one another between songs.

The Black Lodge Band burn down the cobwebs swiftly and leave the audience shuddering from the weight of their sound (most notably the pounding tom work from the drummer, which sounds as if the skins are wrapped around the abyss - they’re that deep)  Once headliners make their way to the stage to set up an army of eclectic instruments, sparks of light and excitement are shooting across the room, although a few more onlookers wouldn’t have gone amiss. Xylophones and other tinkly nonsense is set upon stools and bodies arm themselves with other miscellany, as well as more conventional fancies.

With a slurred drawl from both violins at either end of the stage, Orphans & Vandals sink into the deep, dark vibes, willingly and slowly drowning themselves in wave upon wave of desolate sound. There are few bands that execute this sort of melancholy so well (Arab Strap are the only lot that spring to mind and they have long since disbanded to form Sons & Daughters, which, funnily enough, O&V again share a thread of musicality). The album opener ‘Strays’ is gloriously tortured into an epic crescendo that hits through to the very marrow. From thereon, there’s no going back…

Orphans & Vandals steer the course to deprivation, sex and doom until bodies in the audience are shaking with the energy and the rhythms ooze out of their hearts and fill the walls and the minds with sweet sorrow. With too many highlights to mention, their album ‘I Am Alive And You Are Dead’ is cut open, examined and given a brilliant, loose edge, boasting of a confidence usually acquired with age. This relatively young band just have so much potential, so much drive, that you should witness the blotched colours for yourself.

The chemistry between the members is clear, all with their own genuine stage presence and generating an intrigue for the spectator, as if the layers of sound aren’t enough. Front man Al Joshua appears terribly fragile, frantic and engulfed in his noise, being such an unlikely candidate for leading a band. This persona works in a way that you’d expect from awkward artists such as early Morrissey or Ian Curtis. When he’s not ripping the living hell out of his strings or blowing his lungs into the blues harp, he can be found jamming his hands into his tiny drainpipe pockets, or accidentally cradling himself with one arm whilst rubbing his eye out with the other.

Make no mistake: Orphans & Vandals aren’t captivating just because of the array of instruments they play or the way they hold themselves on stage. They are a band all about their music and they are a soundman’s nightmare.

So much to digest… So many sounds… Nnnnnrrr…  uh.