Content area
Full Text
In just one evening, it was possible to experience a trio of vital gigs. This is a tactic that's becoming increasingly necessary as Birmingham's live music scene continually gains mass and momentum.
First up were Ladytron at the packed-out Academy. This enigmatic Liverpudlian quartet dress like uniform showroom dummies, using a 1980s synthesiser vocabulary to craft catchy songs that succeed in making alienation seem like a romantic ideal.
Ladytron's impressive live sound is multi-layered, driven by bass and drums, underpinned by cartilage-crumbling subsonics. Already, they're not content to coast, re-modelling tunes with unhinged analogue shrieks or, in the case of the already classic Seventeen, speeding its climax up into a punky adrenaline rush. Othersongs, like Fire, Cracked LCD and He Took Her...