The Cooper Temple Clause's Misplaced Homecoming

United Kingdom | | 01 October 2002

The Cooper Temple Clause, London Kentish Town Bull & Gate, 30.09.02

They made it good like we said they would. There are hopeful but ticketless fans dotted around the entrance to the Bull & Gate, and an aura of expectancy inside the venue clings to the walls like the smell of sweat and alcohol. Tonight sees a triumphant [if misplaced] homecoming for the Reading sextet, who spent their gigging infancy in this grotty corner of north London.

Despite many opinions to the contrary, The Cooper Temple Clause are not solely about hype, hyperbole or haircuts from the more exotic regions of South America, and tonight proves that. More than anything, the Coopers are about loudness. Ear-splitting, brutal, bowel-busting, seismic loudness. If your ears aren't leaking cochleal fluid by the time you leave, then you've been in the wrong pub. Their success comes from being utterly sure of themselves. There's no hesitation or uncertainty in sight as they combine precise, complex instrumentation with the kind of intense and cataclysmic noise levels that would make Lemmy weep like a baby.

You all know what 'Panzer Attack' sounds like by now - a 30,000 strong sonic army [no, not The Polyphonic Spree] equipped with bass drums and bazookas, wreaking vengeance on all who stand in their path. New single 'AIM' meanwhile, resembles the damaged offspring of Prml Scrm and The Specials, but as with pretty much everything the Coopers do, it's darker and dirtier than either.

There's a reason all these people turned up tonight, many of them sporting Coopery mullets, and there's a reason why the band are abducted from the stage at the end by the crowd and carried on their shoulders to the exit doors, and only allowed to leave after signing untold autographs. Obsession. TCTC's brand of chaos theory, indie-whipping techno-art rock is all killer and incites the kind of fanworship that the eyelined masses of Manics, Mansun and Suede attained in their nineties heydays.

In a world where words like "incendiary" and "vital" are tossed around like large record deals to garage rock bands, this is one band for whom such descriptions couldn't be more accurate. We need them, now let's see if they can see it through.

Genevieve Williams

The Cooper Temple Clause headline the Kerrang! Weekender at Camber Sands near Rye this weekend.