Heaven, London
“It’s insane how beautiful life can be.”
Over the course of an hour, April Harper Grey offers a myriad of projections: animated storylines, audio calibration tests, and niche pop culture references against a foray of equally intense hyperpop and pop-punk; converging within an adulterated, beautiful world.
Such words resonate along the sharp, digitised backdrop curated by Grey, distinguished under her artistic moniker over recent years Underscores, as she appears in the foreground with a darkened silhouette presence. Appealing to a noticeably young demographic, forged against the hyper-stimulated scenery of our modern world, it’s perhaps all-too-easy to misremember the beauty of life’s seemingly mundane nature - not so much within this such world.
For this beauty plays its part from tonight’s inception, ‘Cops and Robbers’, forging a fun, anthemically-driven (albeit crass) pop-punk anthem for the adoring crowd beset with copious energy and ebullience. Whilst the quirkiness besieging this track, along with much of her latest LP, Wallsocket, smack with the eclectic antics of 100 Gecs and Dorian Electra, older throwbacks to pop-punk’s glory days are also redelivered into the spotlight once more. From her debut days of Boneyard aka Fearmonger, ‘Heck’ ignites a mid-00’s pop-punk revival like no other: blown-out basslines; white noise distortion; chants of “I’m a slut for you”; ring with an unequivocal reminiscence to that of The All American Rejects, Motion City Soundtrack, New Found Glory, and All Time Low; revelled by tonight's adolescent generation this evening.
In one moment, this revival rears its head toward slower-paced balladry: ‘You Don’t Even Know Who I Am’ positions Harper centre-stage, sitting cross-legged, wallowing in an emotionally confessional tone, forever scraping against the championing vocal loop (“Everybody has bad days, don’t worry! You can do it!”) in its midst. To some, these convergences may seem crass and superfluous, yet it is these sorts of tropes which are clearly of great appeal to tonight’s voracious audience. For one can never be too sure which tone and mood Harper may pluck at any given moment: the dance-fuelled ‘Johnny Johnny Johnny’; the bravado-inflected ‘Old Money Bitch’; the chipmunk vocal-afflicted ‘Spoiled Little Brat’ - all contained within the beautifully-twisted and hyper-stimulant world conjured by the solo dynamism of Underscores.
Chopped-up, glitch-focused sampling remains the foundation of Underscores’ revival of yesteryear’s once-beloved pop-punk genre. Garnering the latter track with unreckonable force, driving the crowd to sweat-induced moshing, tonight’s finale, ‘Locals (Girls Like Us)’ ultimately levitates the audience with its gravitating hook and dance-inflected veneer. Taught against Harper’s quivering yet righteous voice, the flavourful depth of her repertoire proves instantly palatable - offered to an insatiable crowd who chant the final lines (“Baby I’m delusional…It’s the talk of the town.”) as Harper exits stage and the film credits roll.
Within Underscores’ adulterated world, where the quirkier are championed and the average are sidelined, it’s hard not to be swept up by tonight's tidal wave of emotions, trajectories, offerings and misgivings. Some moments prove invariably trite (Britney Spears' cover to name one) yet Grey proves to be the self-effacing flagbearer of this genre revival in recent years. Caked in an anxious and insular presence on-stage, Grey compensates an eclectic brand of electropop-cum-pop-punk destined for its own beguiling world.
7/10
Underscores' latest LP, Wallsocket, is out now via Mom + Pop Music and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of Liz Mackay whose work can be found here.
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