The Frights Live at The Masons Arms Llanelli 05/03/16

Photo by Trudi G. Article first published in the Llanelli Rock Scene Column in The Llanelli Herald & The Carmarthenshire Herald on 11/03/16

The Frights are a 2-piece (vocal / guitar and drums) surf noise band straight out of border town, Newcastle Emlyn. Described as possessing the sound of an ‘anti-modern technology rebellion’, that for me is as powerful and complete as any 4 / 5 – piece band I have seen. The Frights couple ‘the early rock n' roll spirit of the fifties, right through punk (to) the Arctic Monkeys’ of more contemporary times.

Tonight is the second time I have seen The Frights this year and on both occasions, I have been hugely impressed. The influences of garage punk bands such as The Cramps, The Meteors, Tiger Army, even Johnny Thunders and in parts, Tim Timebomb are clear - Rockabilly style songs played at varying tempos, without bass, and drum driven with minimal kit; the floor tom covering the mid-range.

Arriving on stage, the understated charismatic singer / guitarist Marc Weyland (Ex Rayguns and The Stingrays), looking genuinely surprised at how busy The Masons is tonight, tears in to the riff of Vampire Love that sears through this small sweaty room. Songs such as The Vincent Price Promise, Unfortunate Son with the intense, haunting chorus line that demands attention ‘(B)ut you always were the one’, Broken Little Heart, Queen of Harm and their version of the first single by post punk band Bauhaus, Bela Lugosi’s Dead, get the crowd going in an instant. Set closer Bullet, a wall of noise that brilliantly captures the discord of their anti-modern rebellion, fares even better - Leaving a sense of excitement and occasion hanging in the air.

There is very little interaction between songs from the band, beyond Marc Weyland quietly ‘thanking the crowd for listening’. There is nothing contrived about his understatedness, this is simply the way he is - Strong, soulful and harbouring a silently confident sincerity. In many ways, Marc is a refreshing antipathy of the self-important ‘rock icon’ that so many bands appear to desperately yearn to mimic and reproduce, but ultimately fail.

Quite seriously, I have seen any number of bands play Llanelli and the wider UK this past year but nothing as raw, menacing and original as The Frights. Talking with the band in the cramped smoking alley to the side of the pub following their set, a young woman, of no more than late teenage years, approaches leaving Marc and drummer Paul Melnyczuk visibly awkward, when she tells them that tonight their band gave her ‘a similar buzz’ to what she had felt the time she saw The Cure, her most favourite band - The proof, if it were ever needed, The Frights are relevant and are coming.