Five-piece band Sisters use their post-punk, gothic-darkness to light up the midweek in Leeds, with a confident and bewitching set at Wharf Chambers.
It’s a hard grind for a lot of new bands when you first set out on a career in music in this country; the finances of running a band on the smaller gig circuit are a nightmare, it’s incredibly difficult to get established in a crowded market and you’ll often find yourself playing a tour to crowds of 30 or 40 people, if you are lucky, trying to gain a foothold in various cities around the UK, while balancing day jobs to keep yourself afloat.
For Sisters tonight, it’s a relatively healthy crowd in the far from glamorous, but Leeds community-wise, really important Wharf Chambers venue. As a band that may have formed in Liverpool together, but are a mix of American, Swiss and British members, it seems a very fitting setting to see them in a space
that caters and supports the fringe outsiders on a regular basis.
If you are going to make a mark in the music industry and build your following organically, as Sisters are trying to do, you need a starting point to hook people in. Good songs help and Sisters have them in abundance. Impressively, they are self-produced as far as I can tell. Clearly, this is a band that has confidence in themselves and the path they have chosen.
The biggest selling point for them, from what I witness tonight, is that as well as sounding like a really tight band who all play their part, in lead singer Gigi, they have an incredible focal point onstage and within their sound.
Other people may see different influences in the band, but as a long-time fan of both Wolf Alice and PJ Harvey, I can definitely see and hear moments of the influence of both artists. Gigi stalks the stage: she’s dramatic, at points she’s crouched on the front of the stage, next writhing on the floor while still continuing to deliver the vocals. She’s in the space at the front of the crowd dancing and you can’t take your eyes off her.
It’s a beguiling, theatrical and at times frenetic performance from her and it could well be the difference maker for them and how they progress and swell their support moving forward.
Putting on a show is just one part of it, and as I mentioned, they have the songs to back it up. New single ‘Guerrilla’ is one of their heaviest efforts yet; a crunchy, snarling, grunge-tinged track that I love.
‘I Can’t See’ is one of the most instant tracks. It has a pounding rhythm, keeps the pace up throughout, and the guitar and bass are great together, setting a platform for the urgent yet measured vocals.
’You’re a Genius’ changes things up more. In the opening, it’s the synth and bass stealing the show and it’s later on that the vocal refrain of “you must be an alien” hits in the song and stays with me for the next 48 hours.
It’s that ability to build and grow within the tracks that Sisters do so well. They play a brand-new song that sees a switch to a semi-acoustic guitar and again it’s as the song rises and surges from its calmer start that you get swept into it. It’s incredibly promising that they are diverging their sounds already and could take this project into any number of different directions.
Will they sustain a ‘successful’ career as a band? Who knows? But they are definitely heading in a positive direction, they have the right attributes and probably just need a breakthrough track to catch to take them to the next level.
For now, though, we can enjoy seeing them develop. It is, after all, early days for Sisters, but they are exciting and they leave their mark on this little bit of Leeds in their own way. Definitely a band to keep an eye on and catch live if you can.
https://www.sistersbandofficial.com
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Photography by Kev Trotter.
