Therapy?: The Sugarmill, Stoke on Trent – live review

Therapy?
The Sugarmill, Stoke on Trent
15th December 2022

Therapy? return for the second time this year to dust off the cobwebs from their early material, whilst infusing it with some sneaky hidden gems. Louderthanwar’s Christopher Lloyd was there to endure the tinnitus and report.

2022 has been something of a landmark year for Therapy? The indie-noise-pop-punk-everything trio finally got to tour their ‘so much for the 30-year plan tour’, 32 years due to the pandemic, a tour which saw the band reconnect with their faithful fans and hit them with a greatest hits package that has cemented the bands status as underground, and lets not forget briefly mainstream, legends. That mainstream period in the nineties was down to the band’s second full-length album, Troublegum, an album that was such a landmark for the band that it still gets heavy, heavy play in the standard Therapy? set. You can’t go to one of their gigs without seemingly hearing at least two thirds of their 1994 classic.

Until now.

To wrap off a triumphant return to the live scene the band have returned to venues that are a bit further off the beaten track with a tour entitled ‘Love your early stuff’. It’s a title which at first glance is a little misleading, in that over half of tonight’s set is taken from albums post Troublegum, however so diverse is the Therapy? sound that the chosen tracks all have a similar aesthetic to the caustic calling cards of the bands first two mini-albums.

Taking to the stage with the mighty Babyteeth mini-LP opener Meat Abstract, it’s immediately apparent that the slick and tight showmanship that the band are famous for has transmogrified into a much wilder beast. The drums are tighter than a Tory purse, courtesy of Neil Cooper, who not only has to fill in the early-era shoes of Fyfe Ewing and his unique, trademark drum sound. It’s a task performed with such ease that it’s only as I type this that I realise at no point during the set did I even think of the original drummer, no mean feat with such uniquely rhythmical heavy hitters. The other fifty percent of the rhythm section Michael McKeegan’s bass churns out elastic bass lines at a thunderous pace, whilst Andy Cairns screeches out the lyrics with joyful malevolence, having the time of his life as he lets his guitar create a dizzying maelstrom of noise. The volume that one guitar alone created was enough to render even the most defended ear with more rings than Saturn.

From old to new they follow up Meat Abstract with Wreck It Like Beckett from their latest album Cleave, and whilst it’s clearly got a more poppy hook than its predecessor, it finely displays that whilst the band have taken stylistic left turns throughout their career there has always been an honestly noisy edge underlying it all.

Much of Babyteeth, a smattering of Pleasure Death and random deep cuts from gems such as Suicide Pact You First and Crooked Timber follow, all ear-splittingly joyful and thrown at the Sugarmill with a kind of intensity that I’ve not seen the band lose themselves in for quite some time.

By the time the encore comes, there’s an unexpected cover of Discharge’s ‘State Violence State Control’ along with an inevitable foray into Troublegum. However, as they tear into Knives and Nowhere, there was a different kind of vigour on display, a joy perhaps from reconnecting with a back catalogue of songs which rarely receives a live airing and has clearly brought a more freeing atmosphere to the playing. It’s infectious and it hopefully will fuel the band to include more of their hidden gems into future sets.

It’s been thirty two years on since I first saw Therapy? live, and what tonight’s set of ‘promised oldies’ actually proved to me was that throughout the history of the bands discography, their old aesthetic never left and that as long as they keep on embracing their pre Troublegum past and applying that ethos into whatever they project are currently working on, they will remain one of the country’s finest, exciting and fascinating bands.

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You can find out more on Therapy? at their official website and Instagram pages.

Words and Photographs by Christopher Lloyd. More writing by Christopher can be found at his authors archive.

Source: louderthanwar.com