ENGLISH TEACHER // QMU, GLASGOW
English Teacher storm QMU
★★★★☆ (4/5)
ENGLISH TEACHER PERFORMING AT GLASGOW’S QMU
PHOTOCREDIT: KENDALL WILSON
Q: Are we sick of quirky British rock bands that take on a variety of genres, utilise odd and switch up time signatures and make use of humour in their lyrics, with driving guitars and urgent baselines. A: No! (Well actually definitely yes!). But certainly not in the case of English Teacher who don’t really fit in with that description anyway. Though presumably in a lazy backlash to their well-deserved Mercury Music Prize winner will be lumped in with the rest of landfill British post punk by an ignorant few. Admittedly up to a few weeks ago this humble amateur music journalist was one of those people. However, after actually engaging with there superb debut album This Could Be Texas I am converted.
Tonight, they are supported at a bustling QMU by TTSSFU. The bedroom project of Tasmin Nicole Stephens, is tonight supported by a full band. They are a truly excellent support choice, playing an excellent set of dreamy atmospheric shoegaze with at times stark and emotive lyrics. The songs build gentle with repeated riffs before exploding into visceral distorted breakdowns providing catharsis. Equal parts aggression and ethereal. I would strongly recommend checking out them out. Hopefully they return to Glasgow soon for a headline slot.
The stage is set for English Teacher with large daffodils all over the platform in reference to their excellent song Nearly Daffodils. The set opens with R&B, which immediately grabs the attention with its urgent and driving chorus. It’s tense the bass and drums interplay wonderfully and though I’m using all the post punk adjectives from the post punk thesaurus (editor’s note Microsoft word thesaurus) it’s lyrics highlighting racists expectations and the vocal delivery set it a part. It’s absolutely thrilling.
Throughout the lyrics veer from heartfelt to funny touching on serious subjects frontwoman Lily Fontaine is a charming presence throughout. While there is much stylistic variety in the music from the folky influences to progy elements. The Best Tears of Your Life has an incredible build and climax. The show has real momentum towards the end with heavy hitters The Worlds Biggest Paving Slab with its urgent post punk driving guitars (Couple of callbacks in there to the opening paragraph, hopefully you noticed that without this explainer which kills the momentum of the review) and Albert Road. After a quick encore it’s over, English Teacher are certainly worth the hype. I’ll never dismissive a dryly named English band again (insert wink emoji).
