Wednesday 10/10/07 Archive @ The Scala, London

The Scala is located in North London, but tonight you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d somehow strayed into an EU summit meeting somewhere in Brussels. French, Polish, German, Greek…they’re all here, to see Archive play their hearts out.  Archive may have been around and releasing material for over a decade now, but this is only their third London gig in five years and fashion faux pas’ aside, tonight is packed to the rafters and promises to be a great homecoming for the band. Despite their legendary stellar performances and sonic soundscapes, it’s a relatively simple looking stage set up and after lot’s of waiting around (a special guest no show) the band finally put in an appearance.

Taking to the stage in dribs and drabs, the opening song ‘Lights’ gradually builds and builds with more and more members joining to add their musical input in order to create the opening track’s multi layered structure. It’s a long and drawn out affair (fifteen minutes!) and one that promotes loud and idle chit-chat, from the sidelines, but for the loyal fans out there, they know what’s coming next. Hunched over his synth and rocking backwards and forwards, Darius (no not that one) looks like a man possessed and it soon spreads as the band appear to have discovered that all illusive ‘11’ on the volume control. It’s been a long time coming but their hive of individual energy suddenly explodes in a huge collective apocalypse of noise. From here on in it’s a relentless onslaught of lights, driving bass, loud guitars and ever present sinister synthesizers; there’s no sign of the show ever ending and Archive systematically  unleash song after song after song.

To say that they are incredibly tight and well rehearsed in set piece performance would be a travesty of an understatement and as the night goes on, they let loose the likes of ‘You Make Me Feel’ and ‘Black’ to name but a few. It’s an interesting situation, despite playing to a full house made up largely of long serving die hard fans who clearly love Archive more than dance improvement classes, the band seem extremely reserved and almost shy with vocalist Dave Penny hiding behind his flowing locks. ‘Sit Back Down’ and ‘Sane’ are welcomed with open arms yet regardless of the overpowering enjoyment shown by the vast majority of the crowd, seeing Archive live is, for want of a better expression, just like Marmite; you either love it or hate it or like the post these days; you either get it or you don’t. There is very little middle ground and it takes a lot of hard work and concentration to reap the rewards from one of their gigs. But all said and done its top marks for effort and proficiency, and the crowd have clearly had a ball demanding an encore which the band all too willingly provide…twice, with ‘Finding It So Hard’, ‘Again’ and ‘Pulse’ before Pollard Berrier brings this truly epic night to a show stopping end with ‘Bridge Scene’.

With London a resounding success and with the promise of new material in the pipeline, Archive will no doubt be looking to add to their already staunch following with yet more UK dates.