Music / Review
Review: Jadu Heart, Rough Trade – ‘The pair are just deeply, deeply cool’
Chatting to Jadu Heart after their gig at Rough Trade, I find out they don’t usually get very good reviews. Alex jokingly begs me to give them at least a nine out of ten, and is relieved when I say there’s no numbers involved.
It’s difficult to fathom the band getting a bad review – for Alex’s sake, consider this the first ten out of ten review for the pair.
The duo have only played two live shows in the past two years, and they’re back with a bang.
is needed now More than ever
This gig feels particularly special; Alex won’t stop gushing about Bristol, explaining that it’s their ‘spiritual home’. They wrote their last album Hyper Romance in the city, and have been desperate to move back ever since.
And Bristol loves them back – the crowd are sickeningly wholesome, softly headbanging and throwing their arms round one another.
Someone even offers Diva-Sachy their sunglasses when she says the house lights are in her eyes, and someone else donates their cap. She puts it on backwards, and becomes the only person to ever do this and actually look good. Together the pair are just deeply, deeply cool, and everyone is in awe.
The duo call Bristol their ‘sprirtual home’ – photo: Mia Smith
The set is a celebration of Jadu Heart – a masterful mix of old and new tracks to show off their ever-evolving sound. Their electronica is actually interesting, the beeps and boops melded with genius guitar riffs and anchored by a uniquely powerful storytelling.
The pair usually appear in anthropomorphic masks, but this time shake off their theatrical monikers: intimate and completely themselves.
Throughout there’s a rustle of paper bags, the crowd clutching their vinyls close to be signed after the show. The queue to meet the duo is impossibly long – snaking through the entirety of Rough Trade.
The pair are genuinely ecstatic to meet every single person, and invite us all for a drink after the show too. They’re off to America at 10am the next day, but they don’t care, they’re finally home.
Jadu Hart are back, and boy are they back better than ever.
Main photo: Mia Smith
Read next:
- Review: Emily Magpie, Loco Klub – ‘It’s clear this gig is an intimate gift’
- Review: Faye Webster, Thekla – ‘Her melancholy jangle and souther charm is mesmerising’
- Spotlight: boci
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