Tuesday 27/09/05 Film School @ Dublin Castle, London

September 28, 2005 by Zoheir Beig

The last time Gigwise saw Film School, as support for the amazing TV On The Radio, we made friends with a girl from Boston called Nummy. Together that night we a) destroyed the evil machinations of a ticket tout and b) came to the conclusion that Film School were a quite brilliant combination of Fugazi and Joy Division. Over a year later Gigwise finds itself in the same backroom-of-a-pub venue in which The Killers played their first ever British show. Another American girl, this time from California, complains to us that she came to the city to hear British music and bemoans the irony of flying across the world only to find herself stuck watching a band from her own state.

Tonight San Francisco’s Film School are a frustrating, difficult experience. They lace their icy post-punk in swathes of feedback and walls of crashing guitars, like the crescendos to Mogwai’s most cathartic moments but without the prior tension, like My Bloody Valentine but without a beating heart. It’s a shame because, as patronising as this sounds, Film School have genuine promise lurking behind their tempestuous front, especially with set closer and new single ‘On And On’ sounding like a taut lesson in alienation, and frontman Krayg Burton’s voice reminding Gigwise of the howl of Trent Reznor (marking a change to black-shirted men singing like Ian Curtis) The Fugazi comparison of last year also stands, Film School still sharing a caustic edge with the D.C heroes. Yet there’s no focus to their shards of noise, as if Film School are playing the roles they think they have to instead of what they feel they should. They’re the aural equivalent of the cast of ‘The O.C’ starring in ‘Kids’.

We never saw Nummy again, which is probably just as well because she may have turned out to be disappointing company. There’s an analogy there somewhere.

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