The Lounge Society

The moment you set foot in the Covo Club, you immediately feel at home. Casalone's venue is a small, long-established Bolognese institution that has hosted a seemingly endless string of fine acts at the very start of their careers, including Franz Ferdinand, The Amazons, Idles, Shame and Libertines, for whom it marked a genuine Italian launchpad. For the very young The Lounge Society, this was their Italian debut show, followed the next evening by a date at Arci Bellezza in Milan, where the band presented "Tired Of Liberty", a strong work spanning art-punk, dance textures and contemporary post-punk, seasoned with a good dose of irony and lyrical wit.

The task of breaking the ice, almost an hour after the doors opened, falls to the heavy, wild psychedelic rock of Big Mountain County, a Roman band fresh off a European tour on which they presented their new EP "Klaus" to audiences. Through just a handful of tracks — among which the hypnotic liquid-guitar riffs of "The Klaus Crossing", the rhythms of "Where Are You?", the psych journey of "Somewhere Else" and the more bluesy progressions of "What Do You Think?" stand out — the engaging, dynamic quintet manage to warm up a room that had started out a little too lukewarm.

The Lounge Society take the stage just before midnight, kicking things off with a building instrumental intro before launching into a dozen songs drawn from their debut and the acclaimed EP "Silk For The Starving". Clearly channeling a consummate showman like David Byrne, Cameron Davey wrestles repeatedly with his hair, microphone and bass, pulling the audience's full attention onto himself and showing off tremendous energy and stage presence throughout the performance.

The first part of the show undoubtedly holds the best moments, with the spot-on triptych of "Cain's Heresy", "People Are Scary" and "Blood Money", which highlights the band's great chemistry: drummer Archie Dewis puts in a standout performance, and guitarists Hani Paskin-Hussain and Herbie May appear perfectly in sync, if a touch calmer and more restrained (relatively speaking) than their frontman.

Following the trajectory set by the opening, the explosive instrumental passages of "Remains" and the Byrne-esque delivery of "Last Breath" keep the momentum going, before stepping on the gas with "No Driver" and then slowing down with the choral "Upheaval", rougher and more bittersweet in its live incarnation.

The band reaches its final rush with the battered synths of "Beneath The Screen", slipping into slight repetitiveness with the noisy, schizophrenic "Valley Bottom Fever" and the funky rhythms of "Burn The Heather", after which they carve out a bit of breathing room, sketching out an instrumental interlude and thanking the crowd for its warm welcome, before the signature tune "Generation Game", a merciless takedown of today's society.

Like many bands belonging to the current art-punk and post-punk landscape, The Lounge Society's project already shows a good deal of maturity on paper and on record, but is still understandably a touch green on stage, given the young age of its members. This confirms the impressions that emerged after listening to "Tired Of Liberty": that we're dealing with a highly promising quartet of teenagers, well worth keeping an eye on for the future, as they await a slightly more distinctive turn in terms of sound and greater confidence in a live setting.

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