Concert Review
Artist: Urban Heat
Date: August 7 2024
Supporting: Delores Galore, GVLLOW
Venue: Metro Music Hall
City: Salt Lake City, UT
Urban Heat is already a fave here at Sounds & Shadows, as so many of you have seen them before, and I am finally able to say joined the club. Urban Heat sort of has no specific genre, other than, electro-goth rock post-punk, punk, darkwave, synth-rock band, sort of. They are a 3-piece band, 2/3 are black guys, Jonathan Horstmann on guitar and vocals, Paxel Foley on synth, and, Kevin Naquin on bass. They are beyond impressive in their sound, but live is another dimension.
Urban Heat is breaking all the stereotypes, and we seem to enjoy what they are giving us musically touring to support their recent release “The Tower”.
Delores Galore
A New Orleans synth-pop duo, fronted by Gabrielle Washington, and synth guru Dexter Gilmore. These two are what I would call “The Black Yazoo” mixed with, early 80s Chaka Kahn, and Shannon. Their synth lines were old analog, and were a perfect clash of Early Vince Clarke and the Synth from the Soundtrack for the movie “Beat Street”. They flawlessly married both sounds, with the soulful voice of Alison Moyet mixed with the Swedish goddess Tove Styrke. There was no way to prepare me for something so wonderful, and they were reason enough to get out to see this tour.
Gabrielle would belt out some great vocals, while the synth lines had her, and everyone dancing. Something else that I experienced was that this was the most diverse crowd this venue has ever seen. There were goths, punks, emo, and hip-hop fans. The ethnic diversity was pretty wide (For Utah), while Delores Galore is breaking the mold along with Urban Heat, you gotta hand it to them for crossing the boundaries and delivering something new, and good.
GVLLOW
The Post Punk band that shocked so many of us as well. GVLLOW sounded as if The Screaming Blue Messiahs and The Cure made a baby. They had this post-punk sound, that was so familiar but still had their signature in everything they did. Holding nothing back, they delivered a show that we all got into, with a guitar player’s long dreads, and the singer had almost his entire body tattooed, the sound caught everyone by surprise. The mic stand the singer used was a chain welded stiff. You just had to see this band to understand their intensity. The dark goth sound and Joy Division basslines on top of the ringing screeching bone-crushing guitar started the set with “Last Dance” followed up by “Die By Your Hand”. Their songs were pretty dark but played in a major key, and you felt good with the harsh lyrics, and song titles, like “Fell in Love With a Ghost”. By the end of the set, the singer said “You all better know this one” and they closed their set out with a cover of “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure. The set was about 35 minutes long because we couldn’t handle 36 minutes.
Urban Heat
The Moment we were all waiting for.
The stage went dark, and there was barely enough to see Foley fire up a synth, it went for a few measures, and as a tension builder the hum went across the venue and everyone was getting antsy, a couple of strings plucked on the guitar, echoing out like a Chameleons or even Pink Floyd ready to tear down a stadium, the punters were getting very anxious as the music built up. Then on a single note a guitar line and synth note, and a flash from the stage lights. Then it all went black. 2 measures later, they were fully lit and into “Running Out Of Time”.
Horstmann was singing with the vocals of Imagine Dragons, meets The Fields of The Nephilim, yeah, it was THAT AWESOME. Delivering beats to keep everyone dancing but neither drums bass or guitar were over one another, it all just blended supporting the deep haunting vocals. Without a breath between beats, they were playing “Trust” which I had enjoyed on Spotify, but live is truly something to experience. This is one of those songs that was a good album cut but was meant to be enjoyed live.
Jonathan said, “We are Urban Heat, from Austin Texas, Y’all wanna hear some songs about depression?” With some cheers, he said “Good cause that’s all we do” Then they played “Living Well”.
“Gun In Your Hand” was reminiscent of The Sisters Of Mercy, and almost Alphaville synth, and yeah, that had everyone dancing too. They have such depressing and dark titles to their songs but deliver them with such an upbeat rocking dance feel to it, you just have to dance, to songs about bullets flying, etc. Songs like “Take it to Your Grave” and “Blindfolds and Magic Bullets”. They sound morbid and dark, and yeah, you wanna dance to it.
With the industrial synth and beats, straight out of the Chicago sound in 1990, they powered up “Savor Not The Thrill” with Jonathan chanting “Sacrificed your masters, but savor not the thrill. Transform to an idea and idea you cannot kill”. It was kind of hypnotic really. It was really intense as he built up the repetition until he was screaming “AN IDEA YOU CANNOT KILL” and suddenly it felt like we were flying in an Apache Chopper going into combat and you were prepping the 5 barrel guns.
Giving tribute to Q Lazzarus, they played their fantastic rendition of “Goodbye Horses”, which sounded as if it was their own.
I was thinking all through this set as to how Urban Heat is breaking down a lot of barriers because when I was growing up, there were not many diverse bands in the new wave and punk space. There was “Prince”, “Living Color”, and “Dead Kennedys” had Darren Henley a black drummer, or Joe Leeway in “The Thompson Twins”, but for people of color there was not much for a long time in the alternative punk space. Looking back, however, to Grace Jones, or “The Gap Band”, or Ike and Tina Turner, all of whom influenced the bands we all grew up listening to, I thought of “Sister Rosetta” She was kind of like, PUNK AF. She was this stout short black woman, playing rock guitar before there was such a thing as “Rock Guitar”. She is lauded by so many other artists in the punk world “The Stranglers”, “The Animals”, and “The Kinks” all paid tribute to her. Now I am seeing something she started where 2/3 of the band are black, and they are playing electronic goth punk, and they are cleaning house. Like the first time I saw “Fishbone,” I thought it was an honor to see something so diverse and so cool. Urban Heat are cutting their piece of the pie right now, and they are doing a most excellent job.
“You tell yourself everything’s changing but you’ll always be the same. Pouring salt into the wound is the best that they can do” And if they get in the way there’ll be hell to pay, cause you’ll be someone else” were the lyrics to “You’ve Got That Edge”, probably the coolest lyrics of anything I heard that night.
With such dark themes, they bantered with everyone and laughed a lot, different from a lot of goth bands I have seen over the years, Urban Heat loved the music but didn’t take their music too seriously, they were having as much fun as the rest of us punters were.
Jonathan then said “We’re about at that time, time to say thank you to my friends, you never know when the next time you see anyone is. I had a good friend, Liz, it’s depressing but people die every day, so make sure you tell people you love, if they’re not in their safe places, let them know it.” and they played “Seven Safe Places” that just rocked, we all felt like it was Easterhouse, with an almost New Order bassline, and some David Bowie for good measure. It’s about having a refuge, to be safe from everything, mentally and physically. This is such a beautiful driving song of hope, unfortunately, I suppose it was about someone who didn’t make it.
After some feedback and distortion Jonathan thanked “Delores Galore” and “GVLLOW” and then he said all of this is possible because of us, he gave a pep talk “This is your scene, take care of each other” and they closed with “Have You Ever?”. The show was fantastic and came down to sign everything. (the merch table was getting sacked, and let’s face it, their graphics are pretty cool).
Urban Heat is making a bigger than-expected dent in the music world, having played Cruel World, till now, it’s blown up overnight for them. Go catch any gig you can of these guys, they are worth the trip to the venue, and then some. Just be prepared for something intense, dark, and hope-inspiring, with a few laughs in-between some heavy songs.
