POP & JAZZ REVIEWS : England’s Sheep on Drugs Makes a Visually Memorable L.A. Debut

Sheep on Drugs singer Duncan (no last name) offered his own assessment of the English group’s Los Angeles debut at the Troubadour on Tuesday as the show’s last song began:

“One last chance for the greatest night of your life, and I think you didn’t quite make it,” he said, scolding a placid crowd that was drawn by advance word on the act’s outrageous theatrics. “Oh well, it was just Tuesday. But when you think back a few months from now you’ll be saying you were there!”

He might be right. Big things could well be in store for Sheep on Drugs, which brings dynamic personality and droll humor to genres where there has been none (vapid techno and brooding industrial music, respectively). Duncan himself, looking like a renegade Hare Krishna, could grow into a wonder. Using confrontational performance-art tactics (strapping fake dynamite to his chest, spray-painting black designs on himself) he was a techno-rave Peter Gabriel.

But the show didn’t quite click, and it wasn’t entirely the audience’s fault. Duncan and guitarist Lee (with drummer Rob Merrill, on loan from Massive Attack) failed to add much to the visuals.

Too often the songs sounded like generic techno variations of old OMD or Soft Cell licks, and Duncan’s memorable performance was something to be watched like an art project, not reveled in like rock ‘n’ roll.