Triptych Farewell @ Tramway, 26 Apr

RememberRemember (**) start off today’s Triptych send-off promisingly enough, opening with Fountain Mountain, a woozy, daydream of a song, in sync with the early afternoon, lunch-satiated crowd. Utilising office stationery as percussion, they promise much, building a dynamic, rhythmic soundscape, but ultimately it fails to deliver the protracted pay-off that it does on record, imploding instead with a collective ‘meh’ rather than the expected ‘tah-dah’. Promising, but Remember Remember could just as easily be forgotten.

Correcto (*) on the other hand are guilty as charged of having not one redeemable idea between them. Such is their generic rock template that it’s difficult to ascribe anything to this Glaswegian quartet. A little bit of the Jam maybe, and is that a wholesale rip-off of the Buzzcocks? At times the sound itself is truly awful and the mass crowd exodus during their set is entirely befitting, restoring some faith in humanity.

As we’re always being told, don’t let Frightened Rabbit’s (****) moniker or candid demeanour fool you. Here’s a band ballsy enough to forge their own sub-genre in an attempt to usurp ‘the blues’ for miserableness. Fittingly then, The Greys itself proves a rollicking highlight of their barnstorming folk set, and is segued seamlessly into Square 9, giving a sorely needed, pin-point accurate boot up the arse to today’s proceedings. The only head-scratcher is their relatively low placing on today’s bill.

If you can overlook their rather contrived geekiness (nerd glasses, dweeb t-shirt, uncomfortable-in-own-skin hunched gait – triple check), Errors (****) prove one heck of a proposition. As The Skinny rolls it’s eyes at a rather derivative post-rock intro to one new song, we find ourselves dancing like it’s Daft Punk circa 1997 a mere sixty seconds’ later, apologising profusely inwardly. Then they play Mr.Milk, which, for approximately four-and-a-half minutes of acid-pulsing peaks and troughs, makes every other piece of music ever made seem staid and utterly irrelevant. Stand up straight and be proud guys.

In amongst all this, Dirty Projectors (**) are hard work. The constant shuffle of three-four rhythms jutting out of math-rock textures are, at times nausea-inducing. Yet the New York quartet have pop tunes aplenty, it’s just that they’re buried under portentous layers of jazz noodling and ad-hoc signature changes. There is, it seems, a time and a place for Dirty Projectors. Unfortunately this isn’t it.

Malcolm Middleton (***) can’t seem to hide his sunnier disposition since the dissolution of Arab Strap. Even when We’re All Going To Die, his life-affirmation through gritted teeth anthem is given a dour turn, with only double-bass and violin accompaniment, it still sparkles with the gleeful charm he afforded it for the children’s choir makeover last Christmas. He even provokes the biggest laugh of the day; “C’mom yi bastards,” is his helpful cajole during an attempted crowd sing-a-long on Blue Plastic Bags. Malky it seems is coping fine in the aftermath of the ‘Straps break-up.

With their regulation surgical masks offset by some natty Hawaiian shirts, Clinic (***) are rather more serious, if a bit more ridiculous looking. Their set may be heavy on new material, a disappointment for those of us hoping for an Evil Bill or a Distortions, but new single The Witch allays such petty gripes, blustering around the venue with the menace of old. There’s a fair few lulls though, namely the new songs which don’t feature their trademark teeth-rattling vintage organs, but Ade Blackburn’s highly distinctive, otherworldly vocals alone make Clinic worth making an, ahem, appointment with.

It’s been a day of highs and lows, but if ever there was a band to rely on for a glorious finale, then Mogwai (****) are your men. With a new EP on the horizon they deliver a fizzling set of old and new. Ithica rubs shoulders nicely with their forthcoming, as yet un-named single, which instantly sounds like classic Happy Songs-era fare. Stuart Braithwaite even apologises at one point for playing so many new tracks. The recompense for such audacity? A gleefully indulgent re-working of the epic electro-lullaby Two Rights Make One Wrong, followed by an ear-drum puncturing We’re No Here. It ends with a torrent of guitar feedback, as if to leave a reminder, if any were needed, that the ‘Gwai still rock like a caveman’s house.