Lo Fidelity Loses Pulse of the ‘Big Beat’
Wielding the thumping, trance-inducing grooves of the rock/dance hybrid called “big beat,” the English band the Lo Fidelity Allstars launched an obliging crowd on a spaced-out body trip Saturday night at the Hollywood Athletic Club. But even when you left your mind behind, after a while your bones got bored.
Wrapping up its first U.S. tour, the group’s nearly hourlong L.A. debut featured selections from its album “How to Operate With a Blown Mind,” spinning together keyboards, samples and live drums and bass amid tendrils of pulsating lights and reams of stage fog. The players fused driving electronic crunch with tidbits of vintage funk, soul and soundtrack music, tinting their sonic futurism with nostalgia.
Due to the recent departure of the album’s singer, Dave Randall, deejay Phil Ward handled the lyrics, but his chanting was so distorted by effects that it was tough to tell what was being said, let alone care who was saying it.
The songs also didn’t have melodies or traditional structures so much as recurring rhythmic patterns, yet there was a curious lack of color between the grooves, and the same beats came around again and again.
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