16/4/2009 Evil Scarecrow & Obsessive Compulsive @ the Purple Turtle

Subject	Evil Scarecrow & Obsessive Compulsive @ the Purple Turtle
PostedDate	4/16/2009
	Another night at one of my favourite venues, although I haven't been to the Purple Turtle as much this year there haven't been as many bands that I like appearing. There are a couple tonight though, and Obsessive Compulsive are first. They prove that it's not just indie and dance music that comes out of Manchester these days.   This lot provide lots of crushingly heavy riffing - not a million miles away from the mighty Wildhearts at times although this lot are female fronted and the lyrics veer in a somewhat goth direction at times. Â 'Dying Dying Dead' is always a highlight, and 'In Memory Of...' features a riff so heavy that Metallica or the Wildhearts would be proud of it. Next up are the enormously entertaining Evil Scarecrow. This is the second time I've seen them here recently and quite a lot of people have turned out to see them. The image and musical style is very much goth and death metal/thrash, but their attitude is far from the usual po-faced gloom and doom merchants who normally ply this type of music. All the cliches are there in spades, but this band are ripping the piss out of the whole goth/misery thing and turning it round so it's actually a lot of fun. Â Like The Darkness not everybody 'gets' it, but this isn't going to be to everyone's tastes anyway. Evil Scarecrow absolutely revel in the ridiculousness of the whole thing and you can see they are having a great time. So are most of the crowd. There are audience participation elements to their show ("Sob for me Camden!") and of course the is the very popular 'robot dancing' to 'Robototron'. This is one of the most thoroughly entertaining bands I've seen in years! They also have some of the best song titles - 'Vampyre Trousers' and 'Blacken The Everything' as well as being highly competant musicians. We are also given the Purple Turtle speciality of the lead guitarist soloing while walking along the top of the bar and using it like an extension of the stage. Â They close their set with their very popular death metal version of Europe's 'The Final Countdown' - quality entertainment!