Nordic Giants – Live Review at The Parish, Huddersfield

It has been over 9 months since the Nordic Giants’ album Symbiosis has been released and they are now on their second tour in support of the album which is good news for me as I missed them back in February.

This time they are bringing along Alex Hedley as support, who co-incidentally sang on the Nordic’s album. His set is enjoyable, but I struggled as I wasn’t familiar with his music, next time I should do my support band homework.

The break is short and sweet but enough time to grab another beer and chinwag with another reviewer here this evening before the lights dim and Kenny Logins ‘Danger Zone’ plays as the band’s intro, I wasn’t expecting that! Those lights then stay dim throughout the set and it can be tricky to see what is happening on the stage, but the Nordic Giants sets are renowned for their audio-visual experience and there are a couple of screens strategically positioned to take over the audience’s senses and I’ll freely admit to being completely drawn in as their piano-driven cinematic post-rock washes over me.

The new album Symbiosis features heavily as you’d expect with Philosophy of Mind opening brilliantly with its use of the film “In Shadow” by Lubomir Arsov. Convergence works so well with the film “Happiness” by Steve Cutts depicting the human rat race with rats and Spheres with the film “Solipsist” by Andrew Thomas Huang depicting a couple of people swaying and growing with the ebb and flow of the ocean representing the back and forth of life.

To be honest, it is tricky to describe this Nordic Giants performance, the films work superbly with the music and make their cinematic performance more interesting than your average gig. If piano-driven post-rock is your thing then I highly recommend you go see them.