Alabama 3 live review (2003)

For Logo Magazine (I think) - 2003

ALABAMA 3

LIVERPOOL MASQUE THEATRE

The Masque Theatre is a magical place. All vaudeville and red and steppy and intimate and intimidating at the same time. Happily, this slides in supremely well with the mighty Alabama 3, whose tecknopolitic grace n flavour is a genuine joy at the best of times, and the walls of the Theatre tonight are undulating with pure THC as the sardined groovers mash together in slinky groove. The reason why this works so well– daft alliances with The Presleytarian Church Of Elvis the Divine (UK) aside – is that Alabama 3 write, consistently, manically, inspiringly, simply, exceptional songs. It’s a suicidally fastfisted melange of Oik-Skool Acid House and classy Country; throw in shades of Punk and a gloop of Gospel and what you get is squalid sonic supremacy performed with ebullient menace. With a sense of righteous humour underpinning their every move, tracks of the calibre of Too Sick To Pray and Mao Tse Tung Said in their repertoire, and a sumptuously manic stage presence, Alabama 3 are one of the more inventive bands knocking about.            

Larry Love’s drawling deepthroat and rockin-raven ravemoves have always been of filthy quality, and the ten-gallon headwear marks him out as an inviolably sordid preacher, wherever the religion of this insistent beat and the tabernacle of these alarmingly absolving tunes are conjoined. His chubby, squinting, whisky-addled rapscallion rapper-cohort Reverend D.Wayne Love, however, seems more incoherent than immoral tonight; but then hell and heaven always were ultimately two sides of the same tarnished and speckled dime. Because, as it ever was, the band’s terse tightness is at once perverse and passionate as they lay down despicable devilry behind, and time is stilled in stumpwaving sympathy with the moment.

Alabama 3’s genius lies in their experience, their experimentation, their expansive hold over the etheral and the evil. Musical alchemists that have stared down into the cocaine iniquity of the void to become greater than the slum of their parties, it’s impossible to resist, and it would be unholy so to do. The exit doors are locked between the set proper and the encore – not that anyone’s hyperventilating to leave this church of chaos – and the venue heaves and humps harlot-red with the immaculate sweat of the wasted and the sainted.