
Desperate Journalist
Desperate Journalist, Bloodworm
Desperate Journalist @ The Bodega, Nottingham, UK, January 16, 2025,
Jan 20, 2025
Photography by Ian Weston
Web Exclusive
While January might be classed as out of season as far as the music industry is concerned, it hasn’t deterred tonight’s show from selling out despite it being a cold, icy Thursday night. Indeed for Desperate
Journalist, playing a short run of five UK dates in support of last year’s critically acclaimed No Hero long player, it marks a return to a city they’ve grown to have an affinity with over time,. Having recorded and released a live album at Nottingham’s JT Soar two years ago, their shows here are regularly met with a fervent roar as tickets sell out with gleeful abandon. So, even though the January blues might be omnipresent for some, their presence in the city generates a buzz of anticipation from a fanbase that ranks as one of the most devoted in music today. We speak to a couple of people beforehand who’ve booked hotels in every city to follow them around on tour, while the front rows inside the venue are already adorned with devotees long before Desperate Journalist take to the stage.

Which is just as well for support act Bloodworm, themselves currently riding the crest of a wave having sold out this very same venue back in October and having started this year by playing to 3000 people at Rockaway Beach in Bognor Regis. It was there where Desperate Journalist bass player Simon Drowner saw their performance and asked them to play tonight - albeit at short notice - after original support Dead Mint had to pull out due to illness. For the Nottingham trio, this evening’s “public rehearsal” provided them with an opportunity to play to a new audience and Bloodworm didn’t disappoint. Their gothic-tinged post-punk went down a storm with the packed room, former singles “Depths” and “Back Of A Hand” setting the scene early on. However, it was the newer, as yet unrecorded couplet of “The Crown” and “No Face” that stole the show this evening. With nods to bands like Bauhaus, The Cure and The Sound in their make-up, Bloodworm are taking first wave goth sensibilities to a 21st century audience and doing it in style. Long may it continue!

For Desperate Journalist, tonight’s show might be in support of their most recent - and some would argue finest to date - long player, but their career spanning set offers several nods to their earliest days as a band, It seems weird to be talking about Desperate Journalist as “veterans” having initially formed nearly 13 years ago. It’s too their credit that songs like “Why Are You So Boring?” and “Hollow”, first released in 2017 and 2016 respectively sound so vibrant and relevant today as they did back then. Both exercised early on in the set, and enthusiastically sang back at the band from the floor. Their presence alongside the more recent material sounded pivotal. Nevertheless, its the new songs that really shine tonight not least because of the band’s supreme confidence in their latest material - we count eight of the ten songs off No Hero this evening.
While singer Jo Bevan remains an undoubted focal point and one of the most powerful voices on the circuit, she’s ably assisted by guitarist Rob Hardy alongside the taut rhythm section of drummer Caz Helbert and the aforementioned Drowner on bass. Musically, there’s nods to Suede, early Manic Street Preachers, Mansun and Echobelly among others but make no mistake, Desperate Journalist are a unique entity of their own. The excellent “Unsympathetic Parts 1 & 2” and “Underwater” off the new record rub collective shoulders with the likes of “Fault” and “Personality Girlfriend” off 2021’s Maximum Sorrow that in turn becomes a celebration of sorts and with it, a great British institution is born.

Cherish them with all your hearts. Desperate Journalist might just turn out to be this nation’s saving grace.
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