Myspace: Auction For The Promise Club

Sometimes you can have way too much of a good thing, and that’s exactly someone should have told the lighting guy at Monto Water Rats, London, last night when he was pushing the strobe button. The stunning Zoe from Auction From The Promise Club was unfortunately hid from view of the mostly-male crowd, who packed out the back room, but at least they were appreciated for their raw talent rather than a pretty frontwoman (and her fantastic taste in footwear).

Auction For The Promise Club are siblings Zoe (vocals, guitar) and Toby (drums), and Perran (guitar)
Easily comparable to the likes of Metric and Land Of Talk, Zoe’s raspy yet crystal clear sex-kitten vocals suggest ethereal innocence yet bellow with eerie experience over tight guitars and bash-bashing drums.

AFTPC claim that the band’s influences are in fact Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead. The threesome opened up and burst straight into the set with Fall In, and the powerful, urgent Awake. The set was a mix of more downtempo, shoegazey tracks with a classic high-energy ending – the band claim to not aim in any particular musical direction and this is clear when watching their no-frills show.

For newcomers onto the unsigned music scene, AFTPC already have quite a gigography under their belt – including festivals such as Beach Breaks and Relentless Boardmasters, as well as acclaimed venues including Liverpool’s Cavern Club and London’s The Dublin Castle, Spice of Life and Troubadour.

Penultimate song ‘Under China’ is a fantastic thrashfest, to which Zoe strutted up and down the stage between desperate verses, unfortunately not revealing where their intriguing band name came from.

Enough of that new-fangled anti-folk malarkey, rocking out is where it’s at. The guys (and girl) are definitely ones to keep an eye out for – and will be playing Liverpool’s Cavern Club on November.

Zoe is happy to let the boys in the band auction the trousers; she’s too busy bidding at Frontwoman Extraordinaire and a good one at that. An EP is due out soon, the band are busy writing away after a very busy summer – watch this space!

9/10

By Kim Sklinar