Gig Review: Houndshark, Newbuild, Insider Trading At SON Estrella Galicia

Houndshark, Newbuild and Insider Trading delivered three very different sets as SON Estrella Galicia's road to Soundhood Hackney continued in East London.

SON Estrella Galicia’s second of three gigs leading up to September’s Soundhood Hackney was opened by Houndshark, a London based alt/noise rock quartet who immediately distinguish themselves with their striking visual presence. The drummer is hidden under a voluminous bleached shag, their bassist is dressed in maroon chords and a paisley shirt that puts other paisleys to shame. The frontman is the most standardly dressed of the bunch, but remedies this by caking his face in white paint. The saxophonist is rocking a wife beater. The crowd is small, it's the first band of the night, the people sitting in the smoking area don’t know what they’re missing. The guitar is not the focus of their sound and it works very well, they are discordant, but its deliberate and well executed. The saxophone is screeching, ear splitting and harpylike, crowd, while small, is enthused though stationary. 

Ten minutes into their set, they take a move into a harder, more punk adjacent noise and by the twenty minute mark the crowd has grown by a surprising number. Both band and crowd are enjoying themselves, the sax player has swapped out his instrument for an electric alternative. Despite their cacophonous, almost Butthole Surfers-esq noise (complimentary), the band is exceptionally cohesive; no one part overwhelms another, the basslines are stalwart and the bassist has a real star quality to them. The drummer locks in wonderfully with them. The vocalist drones with a Cobain adjacent cadence and the evening is looking promising.

Next on the docket is alt rock five piece Newbuild. They sound artsy, with a singer/guitarist crooning his way through their set, but it works with their shoegaze adjacent sounds. The rhythm section is grooving astronomically from the get go and by the fifteen minute mark they have reached a flow state. The band sounds ghostly, the rhythm guitar screeches through the crowd and is reigned back in by the bassist and drummer; the sound technician tonight is doing his job admirably. Around the twenty five minute mark, the band has begun to develop a claustrophobic quality, almost a little fearful. The band has a DJ who is doing an excellent job, his sound effects synergise well with the rhythm section. The guitar riffs lurch from ethereal to thrashing at the flip of a switch, but it works better than it has any right to. Their final song is a well orchestrated mess and fifteen minutes afterwards, the headliner begins.

Glasgow based quartet Insider Trading bring the show to an end with a flowing array of shoegazy noodling. The crowd is fairly large at this point and the band is playing in a way that is impressively both ephemeral and tight. Their vocals, while not bad, are not their strongest component; helped less by their spoken word components, which unfortunately do not land. The crowd is not moving, but it isn’t the band’s fault. Their riffs are dancy and upbeat, but manoeuvre into something more adjacent to midwest emo. The band members are clearly fans of American Football, but they manage to make it their own. By the twenty minute mark, the crowd are hooked and have formed a pit small and intense in nature. The guitarist’s pedal setup is impressively diverse, he manages to make his instrument sound like Lush’s Emma Anderson. The room has gotten to be two thirds full, larger than the last Estrella gig. The band has entranced the crowd and the guitarist takes center stage and moves the sound from ephemeral to something more grounded. 

At the thirty minute mark, the band changes their tone again; sonically they enter into a darker realm with vocals becoming guttural, baleful and dripping in with suffering. The crowd switches between mournful swaying and some slightly more joyous movement. They play their single ‘Cowboy’ much to the crowd’s delight and right before they play their final song, the frontman addresses the crowd: “We had some merch to sell, but we played in Glasgow and sold it all… Let's dance and have a boogie!” The crowd does indeed have a boogie. By the end of their set, the room is full and the crowd are having a whale of a time. What more can you ask for?

Photography By: Alex Amoros