Deap Vally Call Hell on London
Out of any place in the world which should be most proud of its musical exports, California is definitely up there. The sunny state boasts Haim, The Beach boys, Eagles and Guns ‘n’ Roses amongst its family of instrument-wielding love children. That pocket of paradise is responsible for some of the coolest groups of musicians on this planet and there’s a new baby to add to the family tree, christened as Deap Vally.
This two-piece female duo flip the bird to sickly sweet girl bands and shine light on female musicians producing filthy sounding rock with effortless style. They’re without doubt quickly growing into the role of the nightmarish rebellious sisters which every family dread dealing with and I love them for it.
Watching them perform at Scala London, my ears had been warmed up by two family-friendly indie bands which worked the crowd up into an excited frenzy. When Deap Vally took to the blue light bathed stage, their first song quickly turned the warm, friendly space into a dirty sweat box of a gig.
Smashing through numbers such as ‘Lies’, ‘Gonna Make My Own Money’ and ‘End of the World’ like angst-ridden bulls in a shop full of my Mum’s best china, their ballsy lyrics and gritty, lung-limbering vocals announced loud and clear that they’d landed and are here to stay. It was their rendition of uber-filthy track ‘Baby I Call Hell’ though, which led me to describe them to a friend as being ‘as if someone’s melted The White Stripes and Roxette together on a spoon over a flame and injected it into my arm’. Deap Vally are sexy, infectious and highly addictive.
Having painted an Edvard Munch style vision of these girls being your worst nightmare to meet in a dark alley, they’re actually incredible personable, sweet friends who share a love of blues music. To quash evil-hallucinations even further, rumour has it they met at a crochet class whilst guitarist Lindsey Troy chatted to drummer Julie Edwards about her frustrations regarding trying to break into the music industry. Next thing you know they’d downed crochet tools, hooked up as a two-piece and started touring the UK and the US in preparation for the release of debut album ‘Sistrionix’.
They gave their energetic set their absolute all and the crowd were putty in their sweaty palms. Flawlessly playing their way through dark and dirty tracks whilst rocking their leather two-pieces off, Deap Vally proved that when girls do rock, you’re more or less guaranteed to be seduced.
I Love London Town 