Whenever you hear a bunch of demos from a new band, it does not matter how promising those demos may sound the acid test will always be, can they reproduce this in a live setting. Many groups have foundered before they got going because they just couldn’t cut it live. Headspace are in their element playing live and it is a measure of how much they enjoy the gigging side of their career by the response of the audience, who charge onto the dance-floor and disport themselves with all the subtlety and finesse of whirling dervishes in the advanced state of delirium.
That is not something that happens overnight, it’s the product of hard-work and knowing what you want to achieve.
But to make an impact, material and musicianship is crucial.
Headspace’s debut single ‘All About The Money’, with a compelling hook and an acute lyric that cuts straight at the heart of the materialism that everyone takes for granted now, possesses a world weary acceptance of the mores of contemporary society.
Yet the song’s instrumental power provides the impetus to sentiments that might otherwise be derivative. But Headspace possess a lightness of touch and wry humour that might even strike a cord with Thom Yorke or P.J.Harvey. It hasn’t happened overnight though for each band member has embraced a variety of styles - heavy-rock, the blues, thrash, prog-rock – at one point or another working out what suited them best. This is the group’s strength, it is consensual: they like playing together. Headspace is a band, a unit, and what they play is the product of hard-work, while understanding instinctively what to discard has been a help too.
Now with a stabilized line-up, David Page’s plangent chords bring attack and power to Ross Towner’s trenchant songs, while the rhythm section – Ross (bass) and Lee Verralls (drums) – is as muscular as anyone else around. Headspace have served time getting it right, doing the gigs and working the rehearsals. They are sharp, and getting sharper all the time. No Question.