PETER PERRETT @ MOTH CLUB, LONDON

At his sold-out launch show, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones fame premiered tracks from his new solo studio album, ‘The Cleansing’, which was out on November 1st. He began on the first three tracks of the record ‘I Wanna Go With Dignity’, ‘Disinfectant’ and ‘Fountain of You’. Although his vocals were not loud enough over the rest of the band due to issues following soundcheck, the raw sound of these songs being performed for the first time live was ethereal, with his son Jamie Perrett unleashing guitar in the tracks, which are lyrically based on the themes of assisted suicide and mental health, subjects important to Peter in an album that is an intimate portrait of the singer-songwriter. Jamie’s cranky and wielding high pitched parts in ‘Disinfectant’ and shoegazing in ‘Fountain of You’ formed a perfect duet echoing his father’s lyrics.

The band moved to Peter’s previous solo material, playing from his album ‘How the West Was Won’ with ‘An Epic Story’, and also did some the Only Ones covers, including the grungy ‘The Big Sleep’. Another new song from the album which is comically based on online Islamophobia, ‘My Secret Taliban Wife’, was tinged with a garage-like guitar sound. The punkiness of the Only Ones’ ‘Flaming Torch’ disturbed the tone slightly from the focus on Peter’s solo material and probably wasn’t needed in the set, but solo pieces such as ‘Living in My Head’ restored the gait; at first having the guitar of The Cure, then transforming into a long drawn-out psychedelic finish. New track ‘Mixed Up Confuscius’, one of the best on the new album, saw Jamie reproduce the reeling shoegaze heard in the recorded version. Then from Peter’s last studio album, ‘Humanworld’, the band played ‘War Plan Red’, with its creeping bassline and turbulent crashes of guitar and percussive mixes ending on a war siren.

Peter Perrett closed his set on a cover of his best known the Only Ones single, ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ and another of the band’s eponymous debut album songs, ‘The Beast’, which had a CAN-like instrumental ending. He and the band returned for an encore of the Only Ones’ ‘Someone Who Cares’ and ‘Take Me Home’ from ‘How the West Was Won’, with guest backing vocalist Vicki Peterson, lead guitarist for the Bangles, joining Peter on vocals for both songs. We can look forward to hearing the new album more finessed when Peter tours it next February nationwide.

19/10/24: Peter Perrett @ MOTH Club, London.