HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE & EVE’S DELIGHT

And so to NAC for an evening of slowcore, shoegaze and dream pop inflected indie from Boston, Massachusetts’ HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE and Suffolk’s EVE’S DELIGHT. The latter are overjoyed to be on the bill, proclaiming their love for the former on several occasions, and there are clear similarities between the two bands. Both are guitar-bass-drums trios. Both have influences that - to my ears - take in the likes of Low, American Music Club, Slowdive, Galaxie 500, Mazzy Star and Beach House.

It is the first time I have even heard of EVE’S DELIGHT, let alone seen them and they open proceedings in fine style. There is something in Oskar’s drumming that reminds me of Mogwai’s John Cummings. There’s a touch of mid-period Jesus & Mary Chain in the guitar, bass and, with particular reference to Sometimes Always (the Mary Chain’s gorgeous collab with Hope Sandoval), vocals of Harvey and Honey. For most of their set, Eve’s Delight are as slow as continental drift but it is compulsive and often beautiful. When things go up a gear, it provides welcome variety but also a slight loss of originality but Eve’s Delight are, ahem, a delight and I very much want to see again.

Whatever debt the openers may owe to the headliners, HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE don’t quite do it for me in the same way. Lead vocalist and guitarist Dimitri Giannopoulos kinda reminds me of Mo Berg of The Pursuit of Happiness, with a dash of Eels’ E in his delivery. On the rare occasions he kicks out the jams, the guitar solos veer into J Mascis territory. Bassist/backing vocalist John Margaris and drummer Jamie Vadala-Doran lay down a slow, spare but solid foundation, the latter displaying jazz chops at times. After a thoroughly enjoyable twenty minutes, HJOL lose me for the next ten or minutes. Things just get a bit samey, plodding, too soporific. Very much not for the first time (and surely not for the last), I feel I am missing the point as the vast majority of the audience seem enraptured by what they are witnessing. Whatever, HJOL do pull things back with the last three songs, sounding almost like a minimalist Crazy Horse on downers (which is a good thing).