Heaven, London
You have got to respect the Naked and Famous for choosing a name (lifted from a Tricky song) that inspires witticisms about their lack of fame. Despite scoring a No 1 debut album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, in their native New Zealand, they are unknown here outside the excitable world of the NME, which staged this show as part of its awards series. If ever a band were made for the NME, it's this one: they combine the intimate boy/girl interplay of the xx, the stompalong electropop of MGMT and the dissonance of Nine Inch Nails ? if they threw a bit of dubstep into the soup, they would be the composite 2011 "indie" band.
Live, they sound a bit like all the above. The keening vocals of Alisa Xayalith, who sings lead with guitarist Thom Powers, give the music a touch of personality ? without her, the set would have been a tangle of strobe lights, electronic glitchiness and distorted guitars. Over 45 minutes, they pull just enough tricks out of the hat to keep things reasonably interesting.
Spank reproduces the sound of a nuclear power plant creaking to a halt: fuses blow, static rattles the amplifiers and the guitars muster a last screech of protest. A Wolf in Geek's Clothing ("This is about shitheads on the internet," Powers semi-explains) uses cranked-up decibelage, interspersed with drowsy mumbling from Xayalith and Powers, to get its baleful message across in four head-spinning minutes.
The singers' voices melt into each other on The Sun, which would have been the best moment of the show but for their two big aces, Punching in a Dream and Young Blood. These full-bodied anthems are greeted with air-punching delight, suggesting that a measure of fame could be in store for the band after all.
Estella Warren Cinthia Moura Monica Potter Brittany Snow Lauren German
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