The between-band DJ plays Kasabian and - I kid you not - Stereophonics without flinching. It's another world.There are a smattering of "scene" haircuts inside the Voodoo Room, but three of them, it transpires, appear to belong to the band's girlfriends, imported from London (they get a turn at shouting on the mic too) There's a visible culture clash going on here. Turn the wrong corner in the city centre, and you risk running the gauntlet of the Fred-Perried "charvers" (as they call chavs round these parts). In the flesh, under a sweaty low ceiling, with half the crowd storming the stage and the other half wandering away in disbelief, Test Icicles are mental, and I'm glad they're out there, making a mess.Hynez's reluctance to engage in local sightseeing is understandable. I suspect Test Icicles of being poshos (to be honest, I suspect anyone younger and hipper than me of being posh, purely as a self-defence mechanism), but that's OK. As long as they rock, they're off the hook.And, if nothing else, a Test Icicles show rocks.
Their album, For Transmission Purposes Only, is unlikely to go down in history as a classic, and I know I'll never listen to it again But that's missing the point. Rory and Sam look like the floppy-haired one out of Bloc Party. Devonte, who doesn't, yells more abuse as headlong Hoxton rock-rap opener "Your Biggest Mistake" crashes into the buffers. "Now I know why I was scared to go out earlier."For someone who claims to have been raised in Texas and Edinburgh, Devonte Hynez has a suspiciously refined English accent, but that's the International Ruling Class for you. Well, it isn't just that there's a stage invasion: it's that a Test Icicles set is one big stage invasion. It's more or less impossible to tell who's in the band and who isn't. The band, for the record, are Rory Aggwelt (25), Sam Merrann (19) and Devonte Hynez (19). That death-metal-techno-hip-hop-screamo bandwagon that's so lucrative right now.
Test Icicles - it's a lame name, but cut them a little slack - aren't what you'd call slick commercialists. From the first pre-recorded beat ("We don't have a drummer!" is one of this trio's regular boasts), there's a stage invasion. You've got to step away from yourself a bit or else you'd go a bit bonkers."Goldfrapp's album 'Supernature' is out now, and their new single 'Number 1' is released tomorrow, both on Mute records. A local bellows abuse, most of it on a theme of "jumping on the bandwagon!" Ah yes.