Gig review: Built to Spill and Disco Doom at The Brudenell Social Club

Openers Disco Doom were a case in-point. Relatively light on vocals and heavy on mutating instrumental grooves, the Swiss rock four-piece aired some excellent songs that provided sharper and darker contrasts to Built to Spill’s distinctively romantic take on US indie.

Whilst unmistakably a “rock” act, Disco Doom certainly demonstrate a splash of the glam and maybe even a sprinkling of the groove their name would evoke - amidst their concertedly contemporary looping riffs and resonating synth notes you’ll find soaring vocal wails and descending chord progressions that could easily have belonged to T-Rex at their glittering best. ‘Ex Teenager’, taken from the album Numerals, was an exceptional highlight here at the Brudenell.

Disco Doom aren’t just Built to Spill’s tourmates - they’re diehard fans as well. Whilst the clear stamp of their idols’ influence upon their music serves as a great compliment to tonight’s headliners, their own, independant brilliance goes one further by giving the audience a fuller and more rounded experience. Disco Doom are certainly deserving of a cult audience of their own; and here in Leeds, they surely took a small step towards building one.

How many bands can lay claim to the same enduring inventiveness and critical acclaim as Built to Spill? Since forming in Idaho 23 years back, Doug Martsch and co. have released eight albums, including this year’s excellent Untethered Moon. Where so many other US rock outfits of their generation - say, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers - have seen their post-millennial output met with consistently worsening reviews, Built to Spill have produced some of their most highly regarded work over the last decade or so. Tonight’s sellout crowd would suggest they’ve retained their cult audience too.

So where exactly lies the enduring magic in this fiercely loved band? The interplay between guitarists Doug Martsch and Jim Roth would be a good place to start the search, the one’s playing obliquely aping the other’s to create a busy and wholesome weave of closely related melodies. Both Martsch and Roth riddle their guitar lines with the kind of sweet harmonies, triumphal bends and trills that wouldn’t sound amiss on a Weezer record (albeit a Weezer record with more pathos and less edge).

Earnest sentiments and emotional frankness form the heart of Built to Spill’s music - and of their lyrics in particular. Both are present (and sometimes used contradictorily) in ‘Never be the Same’, where the first verse’s trite epithets (“Go everywhere you wanna go, see everything you wanna see”) belie the bittersweet tale behind the lyrics. This song in particular strikes a chord with the Leodensian crowd.

Other highlights of Built to Spill’s set included an excellent cover of ‘Up the Hill Backwards’ and early single ‘Distopian Dream Girl’, with few bum notes to speak of barring the veritable banquet of soloing at the close the set, which outlived its own effectiveness by a fair few minutes. This seventeen-song love-in between one remarkably accomplished band and its devoted fans was a heartwarming pleasure to behold.