For a new startup, the Welsh-American sextet No Devotion come with disproportionate baggage. Five were members of Lostprophets, whose name became tarnished when singer Ian Watkins was convicted of child-sex offences. Starting afresh with New Jersey-born hardcore veteran Geoff Rickly on vocals, and a sound informed by 1980s rocktronica, they're treading lightly for the moment.
As Lostprophets, they'd have sold out a club like this 100 times over, but on this water-testing debut tour they're doing just one night. This is partly because the group is still a work-in-progress, with only nine finished songs. But playing small rooms also lets them reconnect with the ultra-fans who've filled the place long before the band arrive onstage. "I know a lot of you are here because you knew the band these guys were in before," says Rickly, an earnest, affable counterpoint to the slick, photogenic Watkins. "They had one of the worst break-ups of all time, and you stuck with them."
Evidently, No Devotion are set on expunging every trace of Watkins – to which end they perform an instrumental exorcism titled Death Rattle, three minutes of industrial drone and feedback that has guitarists Lee Gaze and Mike Lewis bent nearly double. Bleakness rolls in waves; Rickly leaves the stage to allow them to immerse themselves. There's nothing like it in the rest of the set, which is a taut 45 minutes of dark electro-rock. The heaving, Cure-like Eyeshadow is anthemically catchy, despite Rickly's wail of "Where's the silver lining?". And the A-Ha-style synthpop grandeur of Stay candy-coats a lyric Rickly wrote when he was on the verge of killing himself after the end of a romantic relationship.
There's enough promise here to merit optimism, and only the coldest of hearts would fail to agree that they deserve a break.
