I can’t seem to escape The Empty Vessels at the moment, but I’m not sure I want to. Travelling from Milton Keynes to Saturday’s gig, I listened to them on my car compilation tape, then caught them on BBC Oxford Introducing, before finally hearing them live at the venue. There’s widespread approval of their muscular, tune-filled classic rock on the local scene, and their improved standing is well-earned if the latest demo is anything to go by (though the approbation is not unanimous: Jamie Hyatt, selecting demo of the week on the previously-mentioned radio show, appeared to be affected by Poe’s Imp of the Perverse in choosing a syrupy wedding ballad by some Irish colleen instead).
In the flesh, The Vessels are pretty much as I imagined them: genial, committed, skilful and undaunted by the odd technical snafu. Their frontman Matt Greenham is a cheerful Welshman who sings like a young Paul Rodgers, and in addition plays excellent guitar, but the rest of the band are equally impressive, whether you focus on Ross McIvor’s prop-forward-wrestling-an-anaconda soloing or the lithe, ecstatic drumming of Tom Beale. The songs are excellent, with an outstanding ‘It Moves Me’ and apocalyptic ‘Blood on the Streets’ sitting proudly alongside the odd well-chosen cover, in Saturday’s case, Ride on Pony (Well, I would say that. I chose it).
The sort of rock The Empty Vessels play is astonishingly difficult to keep new and fresh, but they seem to manage it triumphantly. This may simply be a case of the collective memory of bands like Free fading (and then the same thing happening to their anagrammatical derivatives, Reef, one generation later), but whatever the cause, I want to hear more from them. Quite a trick. Quite a band.