Today the decor of Oxford Street’s 100 Club remains largely unchanged since the 1970s, much like the energy of some of the names gracing its humble stage. 1976 in particular saw 100 Club play host to the first international punk festival, an effort which undoubtedly propelled new ideas from the British cultural fringe into the musical mainstream at the time. Tonight the infamous venue harbours acclaimed Belfast post-punk quartet, Girls Names, to tour their recently third most emotionally genuine LP, Arms Around a Vision, out now on Tough Love Records. 

 

As the crowd forms neatly around the stage, with enough of a buffer zone for fans to keep a cool distance the band take to the stage, plug in, play, and the crowd begin to nod their heads as if they’re hearing some unknown truth through a wall of sound. Girls Names prove to be a fitting child of the punk and mainstream matrimony the venue gave birth to just under four decades ago, the result is sonic brutalism oscillating violently between arid and lush. Songs like ‘A Hunger Artist’ pang with the desperate throes of a frontman in emotional turmoil reminiscent of Ian Curtis, yet the synth runs and jangly guitar bring us back to the root of the band’s roots, and provide some Stranglers-esque relief.

 

The band continue their set with the energy of Ride’s Leave Them All Behind, but with the stylings of a true garage rock outfit. Personal favourite track from the album, ‘Chrome Rose’, is performed with uncertain desolate darkness, and it’s percussive outbursts cause the crowd to react with jerky viscerality. The same song on the album recording descends into bleak and cold obscurity, which after Girls Names’ performance at 100 club, is something the band themselves are sure not to emulate. 

 

-Benedict Sycamore