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Black Honey: Sweet Dreams or a Beautiful Nightmare?

Apr 10, 2016 1135 views No Comments

Black Honey: Sweet Dreams or a Beautiful Nightmare?

It probably takes less than a minute to get hooked on Black Honey. They are pure class A, producing fully-fledged addicts, who crave the next chemical fix released by their powerful, dreamy, other worldly music. This addict started listening to them a couple of months ago because they are on the Festevol bill in Liverpool over the May Day Bank Holiday and has been hooked ever since. A constant loop of eight psychoactive pop songs that are hits of pure, hypnotic euphoria.

In Sleep Forever a hint of keyboard lulls you into a false sense of security before the drums and bass ease in with the rhythm of a chain gang, psychedelic sledgehammers that excavate every crevice of your brain, smashing through every fold, allowing Izzy’s sweetly sinister, seductive drawl to extract the dopamine you crave.

Teenager starts off with a Coldplayesque ( I know, but I like new words!) guitar riff but then takes it out of space as you hang on to its fuzzy, reverberating coat tails. In Spinning Wheel the jangly, tremelotic (another new word I think!) guitars are like Link Wray on speed, like wildly flaying chainsaws cutting swathes across your aroused sensibility. The dynamics are spot on, with occasional moments of respite from the relentless pounding joy before it all kicks in again. If you invited the B 52’s and a gang of screaming banshees round for a Halloween party in your cellar then the DJ would play Spinning Wheel, followed by Bloodlust and then the whole Black Honey catalogue for that matter. Or better still, the band would be stood there, cavorting wildly in front of you. There would be 1950’s and 60’s home movies shot in St Tropez flashed across the ceilings and walls and some of you would watch the original Italian Job or Roman Holiday while the rest discussed pop art. There would no drugs at this party because this is one legal high that is natural and could remain free from government legislation.

The hooks and melodies in each song are addictive and repeated until they form swirls of incandescent joy in your brain that teleport you into another universe. It’s like going through the wardrobe into Tarantino’s version of Narnia. This band, however, is about so much more than music. The videos of the songs have art stills of TV sets you might find in your great-grandmother’s house, that take you off into sepia 1950’s and 60’s landscapes, or more appropriately through a cinema screen and into the movie being played out. What more appropriate lyric than the line from Corinne: “We live in a movie that nobody else will ever see.” They are, simultaneously, fashion, art, poetry, film and TV, and they trace a line from the past that you go running after as it speeds by you into some distant future time zone. They are influenced but will become influencers in their own right in no time at all. Expect to see a whole host of pop punk female fronted bands spring up in their wake.

These songs are best listened to live or through headphones with your eyes closed, unless you are strolling through your local town centre of course. Or crank up your speakers at home and your neighbours will come hammering your front door down to know how they can find the dealer who pushes that incredible sound from the other side. Which other side? The choice is yours!

So, Black Honey live. What do you get? Due to unusual circumstances I was fortunate to get a double fix. Firstly they supported Catfish and the Bottlemen in Southend and then they played the Flying Vinyl Festival at Hackney Shapes Warehouse the following day. On the first day I was on the balcony, excitedly telling any Catfish fan who would listen that Black Honey will be massive. Most had never heard of them, apart from the conscientious ones who had listened ahead in the five days since they were announced as support. The reception they got in Cliffs Pavilion was good and people were clearly getting into the new songs, but pretty much everyone there had come to see Catfish. It wasn’t Black Honey’s show and you could tell. She exhorted, “Come on, Southend, you know what to do!” She swayed, bopped around, told them that Catfish fans were the most beautiful, and crouched down to speak to front row. It was only right near the end that a mini moshpit appeared to the side. The positive thing for the band is that they will gain hundreds, if not thousands of new fans through doing this support slot. Hats off to the two girls on the very back row of the balcony who popped some very psychedelic 60’s moves throughout the entire set. Izzy Bee would have been proud of you.

The second night in Hackney was an altogether different experience. Squashed by mosh and moshing and moshers and mosherettes, I had the privilege of prime barrier location, with a view to die for. Being able to experience the power of that show from literally inches away was quasi-religious. This is not a band delivering songs. This is a band putting on for people the show of their lives. It must have been like this when the Beatles did their Hamburg residencies and were told to “Mach schau!” Or when Iggy Pop or the Sex pistols first burst onto the scene. I don’t know if the tension created is musical or sexual. It’s probably both. The band ooze sexuality. Girls at the front screamed as Chris stepped forward on to the monitor wielding his six string chainsaw. Tommy (bass) and Tom “I’m-not-really-the-resurrected-Kurt Cobain- I-just-look-a-bit-like-him” (drums) will have no shortage of admirers and groupies. And they are bloody good musicians too, forming an incredibly powerful, tight kickass backdrop for Izzy to prowl.

So what about Izzy Bee? Well there can’t have been a man in the place who wasn’t thinking what I was thinking, and probably a lot of the women too. She had the audience in the palm of her hand from beginning to end, standing aloft on the speakers, first glowering then smiling down at her legions of admirers, singing to them and them singing back to her. They were at her beck and call, from beginning to end, doing everything they were told, putting hands up, crouching down, then jumping back up. A musical dominatrix if you like! Several times she was close enough to touch but hey “you can look but you’d better not touch!” And if she touches you on your cheek, as she did to one young fan, you will probably not wash your face ever again. If she wasn’t a singer she would be an actress- the facial expressions, the voices, the drawl, the mannerisms, the movements. It just works. Even when she asked Chris for a capo, or opened a can to drink from, it added to the tension in the room. That voice, that persona, those songs. Taken away briefly and then given back again.

The set they played was comprehensive and its delivery thunderous. They covered all the songs a fan would expect to hear, Spinning wheel, Madonna, Teenager, Sleep Forever, Bloodlust, new single All My Pride, Corrine, live staple You Said It All and Mothership This last song is what it must have been like to watch early Led Zep in a dark, sweaty, dingy club, all musicianship and charisma. Robert Plant? Izzy Bee? Different sex but no difference really. Same stage presence and utter control of an adoring audience.

Izzy Bee is without doubt the pretender for the title of post punk pop princess. There is no reason why she can’t move into that role. “A Madonna to hang on your wall.” Described in reviews as “gangsta Nancy Sinatra” or as “Lana del Rey in a rock band”, her stage persona is part angel, part demon. She is the heroic villain, a sweet dream and a beautiful nightmare. Think Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love and Debbie Harry, roll them into one, throw them away and start from the drawing board. Start with Izzy. Think Single White Female, drawing you in, taking everything you have and spitting you out. Take the lyrics of Teenager : “The night unfolds, hold me with open claws, sharing the blows this is made of gold, I don’t mind you got the war, it’s alright, I get high you got the tears in your eyes.” She wins every time. She gets high while you are weeping! There is a resilient, gun-toting, don’t-be-fooled-by-my-innocent-look strength. When she sings it drips like honey over your tongue before smashing your teeth in. And still you come back for your next fix. You always will. You thought you could handle it but you’re a Black Honey junkie.

Black Honey are:

Chris Ostler- guitar and vocals

Tommy Taylor- bass and vocals

Tom Dewhurst-drums

Izzy Baxter- vocals and guitar

Jerry the flamingo-a cool, seductive bird. The equivalent of “the fifth Beatle”