hecklergigs: Foreign Born

Camden Barfly - Last Friday (Nov 18th)

Hecklerspray likes live music. So much so that we occasionally venture out of our cramped darkened bedrooms to mingle with the great unwashed masses and catch a live band or two.

And occasionally - very occasionally - we actually stumble across one who we think are actually quite good. A band, for example, like Foreign Born, whose spaced-out guitar noise pleasured our eardrums like something big and noisy and particularly eardrum-pleasuring.

hecklerspray even hung around to have a bit of a chat with lead singer Matt Popieluch - who probably couldn’t tell what we were saying as it was all a bit noisy and your fearless correspondent was also a little bit drunk.

That’s right. We’re so rock and roll, you know.

Foreign Born, meanwhile, certainly are rock and roll (no ironic undertones required). A San Francisco four-piece who meld together such influences as The Fall, The Arcade Fire and The Futureheads, they certainly aren’t going to be gathering accusations that they lack stage presence anytime soon.

On the contrary - blaring out expertly-played controlled chaos as they do, one gets the impression that Foreign Born would put just as much energy and enthusiasm into any gig they commandeered; be it limelight-hogging stadium territory or your grandad’s back room (note: the band will not actually be playing your grandad’s back room anytime soon. Unless your grandad is Michael Eavis, maybe).

Melodic without being unchallenging, accessible without being predictable, Foreign Born may only be taking their first steps into the musical arena but - as steps go - they’re self-assured, confident and dedicated ones. A quick run-through of bands that singer Matt finds despicable - Creed, Nickleback, Jet - should give you a pretty good idea of exactly what these guys don’t sound like. Just don’t go mentioning The Killers. That won’t go down well at all…

You’ll be able to catch them live again when they hit our shores in Spring next year. In the meantime, do feel free to scoot on over to their website and treat yourself to some tuneage - including a track from EP In The Remote Woods (out now) and single We Had Pleasure (released December 6th on Moshi Moshi records).

We hope you like them. Because if you don’t, we won’t be your friend anymore. And you wouldn’t want that, now, would you?

Read More:

Foreign Born Official Site

[story by C J Davies]