The Breeders, Forum - music review

The grunge foursome revisited their magnus opus, Last Splash, on the 20th anniversary of its release
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 29: The Breeders perform at The Bell House on March 29, 2013 in the Brooklyln borough of New York City.
Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images
24 June 2013

Formed by former Pixies bassist Kim Deal, the Breeders released a string of critically acclaimed albums in the Nineties and were cited by Kurt Cobain as being a favourite band.

The intervening years have seen more hiring and firing than a series of The Apprentice but the foursome came to the Forum last night to revisit their magnus opus, Last Splash, on the 20th anniversary of its release.

The band — completed by Kim’s identical twin sister, Kelley, on guitar, Josephine Wiggs on bass and Jim Macpherson on drums — employ the same loud-quiet dynamic as the Pixies. Short in length and schizophrenic in structure, their songs veered from acoustic beginnings to all-out noise-rock, within the space of two minutes.

The grungy guitars of Cannonball prompted mass pogoing among the middle-aged masses, Divine Hammer proved there were melodies to match the mayhem and Drivin’ on 9 veered effortlessly into country-rock.

With Last Splash completed, the band returned for an encore of other favourites. Metal Man’s refrain, “it’s 2000 degrees, that’s hot, that’s hot”, resonated in a venue stickier than most saunas, while Don’t Call Home was a masterclass in how to blend sweet harmonies with fuzzy, distorted backing. “The first show we played in London was at this venue,” said Wiggs. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT