Review: Peace, Komedia – ‘It’s finally cool to be Indie again’

Watching the crowd gather for Peace, I feel like I’ve time travelled back to 2016. I’m surrounded by Wolf Alice and Jaws merch, and people are unironically sipping VKs.

The indie veterans have all trekked down to Bath for the return of the Birmingham boys, five years after their last album and now two members down.

Sam and Harry Koisser are left – two brothers who since then have gotten really into ambient synths and, oddly, medieval beats.

Sam enters the stage playing a comically large recorder, and at one point Harry’s asking the sound guy if he can “please have some more glock”.

The gig is the first stop on their tour, and it feels like not just a reintroduction to the stage, but into society.

Harry’s apparently been holed up in an old church deep in Somerset, Sam visiting on weekends to experiment with their sound. He’s feverishly flailing about on stage, almost forgetting where he is  – “Don’t mind me, just enjoy yourselves”, he laughs.

The old bandmates have been repurposed into a tower of buttons and keys that the pair have constructed themselves.

Their new songs sprawl from these synths and mini keyboards – there’s one about someone called Polly who has perfect hair, happy cars, and also putting on a good pair of jeans to go out.

The band have made their return into a huge occasion, these new songs buried behind the lock and key of peaceforeverever.co.uk, only accessible with a password revealed when purchasing tour tickets.

(I didn’t get one with my press ticket – I’m hoping this review will be enough to let me in) (Please guys).

The new era of Peace leans into the past – even further than the 2016 world we’ve travelled back to – embracing the pre-streaming era where music wasn’t immediately at hand.

Their new album Utopia still has no set release date for streaming – it’s intimate and magical knowing only we’re the only ones who’ve heard these new sounds.

Their set is similarly nostalgic – their drum kit bears the same off-kilter peace sign it always has, and Harry looks like he’s been wearing the same pair of white doc martens for the past decade.

Most tracks they play are old and gold; 1998 (Delicious) is a particular highlight – a sickly sweet 10 minute guitar epic, to which the crowd both moshes and gently sways.

The pair manage to perform three songs for their encore, Harry continuously insisting that they ‘have time for one more’.

They’re too powerful to be stopped, even managing to pull off a cover of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream without actually knowing the words, picking up a stranger from the crowd to sing along.

The show is rapturous, sublime even. The pair can’t seem to believe that they’ve done it – Harry doesn’t stop thanking us for how ‘fantastic’ we’ve been, and gushes that he’s ‘had a really f*cking amazing night’.

Peace are back. Guitar music is back. And it’s finally cool to be Indie again.

Main photo: Mia Smith

Read next:

• Review: Slowdive, SWX – ‘A woozy escape from reality’
• Review: Art School Girlfriend, Rough Trade – ‘Mix of electronic, rock, pop and a bit of shoe-glaze style’
• Review: Peach, Rough Trade – ‘An energetic anger-fuelled band’

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