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PURE REASON REVOLUTION
Heaven, Charing Cross, London 30 November  2011

It's an an age where so many bands from the dim and distant past are suddenly emerging after a long absence to reclaim their thrones, and several others (naming no names) who should have packed it in ages ago are still treading the boards to pay off their mortgages and put their grandchildren through school despite their muse having long since departed.

So it's actually quite refreshing to see a band like Pure Reason revolution, who only formed at the turn of the century, deciding it's time, after four relatively successful albums and a couple of EPs, to jack it in in search of pastures new.

That's not to say they won't regroup after a few years if some big profligate promoter (again, I'll let you work out who I could be referring to) offers them enough readies, or if their solo careers completely stiff, but for the moment, PRR hold the position of integrity and merit- even if half this gig is taken up, as so many of today's cheesier live events are, by a 'performance in full' of their classic album The Dark Third.

Still, it's infinitely preferable to the more recent material performed in the second half, bearing, as it does, an uncomfortable resemblance to 'Violator' era Depeche Mode filtered through the industro-grind guitar thrashings of Pitch Shifter and the angsty bleeps of Nine Inch Nails with the occasional Steve Wilson guitar flourish thrown in.

And, while every prog band has a right to, er, progress, if this was the course they would have charted had they stayed together, then I'm glad they didn't. So let's concentrate instead on the exemplary first half, where they played the very tunes that made me like them in the first place- although ironically, it took me until now to get round to seeing them.

With its harmony vocals pitched somewhere between Queen, Fleetwood Mac and The Free Design (although I doubt very much whether guitarist /co-songwriter Jon Courtney or frontwoman Chloe Alper would have heard of the last-named, let alone heard them), and its floating melodies set to the sort of churning riffs and rhythms that have built a foundation for the voyages of many sonic explorers from Yes and King Crimson to Porcupine Tree, Ozric Tentacles and Mansun, sprinkled with just a soupcon of 20th century classical and techno, The Dark Third always was one of the 00s' more adventurous releases.

And though PRR live have always been more about atmosphere and entertainment, preferring to stand still amidst a waft of dry ice and green night-vision light rather than distract their audience with undue theatrics, it still comes alive tonight, exploding in a flurry of colour sometime around "Apprentice Of The Universe" .
 

...this is one gang, with its strange juxtaposition of grey-haired prog ponytailers, floppy-haired indie kids, Muse-loving yuppies, black-clad emos and metaaaaaaaaaaaal-headed computer programmers, to which I'm glad I never fully belonged.
 

Also, for such a sedentary band, they're surprisingly all-singing all dancing in their own way, swopping instruments left, right and centre, to the extent where sometimes it's hard to see who's doing what- although that in itself is part of the mystery that makes them intriguing.

The audience, who I'll freely admit are fanatical about the band (whereas I just like them) go apeshit pretty much from the first keyboard flourish to the final stanza- and I have to admit, this is one gang, with its strange juxtaposition of grey-haired prog ponytailers, floppy-haired indie kids, Muse-loving yuppies, black-clad emos and metaaaaaaaaaaaal-headed computer programmers, to which I'm glad I never fully belonged.

Then again, a true prog rock fan always watches from the sidelines anyway, knowing full well that he (or sometimes she, but most of the women who like prog, such as Alper herself, will join a band rather than listen to one) must walk the craggy peaks of life's great underwater Roger Dean mountain alone. And tonight is no exception. Mind you, it doesn't stop me from having minor orgasms during "Golden Clothes" and "The Twyncyn" either.

The second half? You know, it's not that I dislike the stuff, it just ain't a patch on their earlier material. With the exception of a couple of tunes such as "Black Mourning" and climactic encore "Fight Fire" Alper is often reduced to twiddling sample knobs and inciting the crowd in handclaps, vocally pushed to the sidelines in favour of Courtney and Jamie Wilcox (that baseball cap has GOT to go, by the way, duckie).

And sadly, though they're exemplary songwriters and musicians, their voices aren't just as interesting without her ghostly, ethereal yet smooth timbre- something which may have precipitated their demise, perhaps?
 

So, then, Pure Reason Revolution in a nutshell: they came, they saw, they made two pretty good and fairly interesting albums, they became less interesting, they buggered off.
 

Apparently she currently spends most of her time DJ-ing dance music and electro under the name 'Chloe Ramone': I hope she does something more interesting than that post-split, but then again, before PRR she fronted shrieky schoolgirl-punkers Period Pains (remember them?) so she's never been one to rest on her creative laurels.

"Is anyone crying yet?" she enquires as it all comes to an end, in this coldest and un-rockiest of venues, just before 10.50 pm. Not I. but then again, as I said before, I'm an appreciative fan rather than an obsessive one.

It's weird to think it's all over, especially as it only seems like five minutes (in truth, eight years, which still isn't long) since it began, but then again, as I said before, it might not be.

So, then, Pure Reason Revolution in a nutshell: they came, they saw, they made two pretty good and fairly interesting albums, they became less interesting, they buggered off. Hardly the most auspicious of careers, but by 21st century standards, pretty damn exemplary, and though I didn't share their enthusiasm for their later direction - be honest, the world doesn't even need Pendulum themselves, let alone another band that sounds a bit like them - I will miss them being around.

As the nutter from the Sainsburys in Camden Town would say, "the best of luck".
 

Review by Darius Drew Shimon