Review: Various Cruelties @ Night and Day café

By Jack Travers

Various Cruelties returned to Manchester’s Night and Day café last week and with their upcoming album due out very soon, big things are expected of them.

The London-based quartet spent a month in Los Angeles laying down the album and although they sounded great live, they will come on a lot for their debut album release.

Lead singer Liam O’Donnell said: “LA was a great experience. That was the first time we had properly spent gelling together as a band.

“We have also done nine or ten Festivals this summer as well as supporting the Vaccines who have exploded. It was a good summer.

“We did Bestival, Isle of Wight and Latitude which all went pretty well. We have only been together as a group for a year so it was good to get out there.

“Supporting a band is good if they are high profile but we are just glad to be here, doing our own thing.”

The band are in the middle of a British tour but have had a taste of things to come when DJs as renowned as Zane Lowe, Rob da Bank and Steve Lamacq aired them.

“The radio coverage we have got has been really helpful. It is pretty unheard of to get on some pretty big radio shows like Zane Lowe and others with so little exposure beforehand so we were pretty happy with that,” said O’Donnell.

“All we are trying to do at the moment is make sure we are as good as we can be and we are pretty confident we can make it happen.”

There were hints of The Strokes and Razorlight from their set which included their best known tracks Chemicals and Neon Truth among others.

O’Donnell has a great voice which can take him and the band far and the tracks played lent themselves nicely to the three guitar and drums set up.

The band are in Bristol, Nottingham, Glasgow and O’Donnell’s home town of Leeds over the next week and we are hoping they stop back in Manchester soon.

VARIOUS CRUELTIES: Lead singer Liam O’Donnell