Polica, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
- Written by Russell Warfield
One of the first things which strikes you about the live set of Polica is the surprising lack of intensity to the sound of a band who perform with two live drummers. With so much vocoder and synth work propping up the melodic aspects of the songs, it might be considered the duty of the dual, organic drum patterns not only to provide a sense of anticipated intensity, but also to provide the sense of humanism which the music might otherwise lack.
But on stage, the drums and the rhythm take a surprisingly backseat role, the two drum lines generally hugging one another quite closely as they slink through the modest grooves of songs like ‘I See My Mother’, in their relatively unassuming way. To be sure, moments like the climax of the tumultuous closer ‘Amongster’ see the duo pulling apart from each other and really letting rip into a clattering chaos as sophisticated as it is intense. But these moments are more anomalous than might have been expected.
Equally and oppositely surprising, however, is that the lack of heightened humanism in the rhythm section is more than made up for through Channy Leaneagh’s vocals. Despite being strained through a purposefully overbearing level of digital manipulation, Leaneagh’s vocals nonetheless succeed in pushing a beautiful amount of human emotion through the filters. Perhaps aided by her faintly nervous and honest stage presence (she is clearly awed by the size of the venue and the amount of people who have packed it out), her lyricism doubles down on the empowered darkness, shot through with vulnerability – a far more intimate and engaging vocal performance than on the songs’ studio counterparts, turning even their overly repetitive numbers like ‘Violent Games’ into something altogether more engrossing.
The sum total is a set which grows on you over its hour in a similar manner to that record which grows on the listener after a number of weeks. Initially, the performance opens with what felt like a fairly impotent version of should-be highlight ‘Dark Star’, where sound levels felt neutered and it was hard to work past the disappointment of not being battered to death by an unforgiving rhythm section. But, as time goes on, these immediate reactions soften, allowing one to immerse themselves in the power and tenderness of Leaneagh’s vocal, its nature being slowly revealed to us. Ultimately, it was hard not to wish that the overall sound was a little more visceral, rather than slinky, but Polica’s set nevertheless delivers in ways one might not necessarily expect – lacing the most synthetic elements of their sound with their most human qualities.