Live Review: Deus / Meltheads – Electric Brixton, London 11.4.2023

With the only UK show, it’s been a long time coming with five piece Belgian rock band dEUS playing at the iconic Electric Brixton, with an eager crowd with the added bonus of a new album released a couple of months back called ‘How to Replace It’ The certainly break boundaries with their rock music and defined sounds! It’s Deus’ first new album release in 10 years which feature some ragged guitar sounds.

The band emerged in 1994 with the single Suds & Soda with combined perfect harmonic hooks and with a screeching Violin and the band were ready in an indie kind of way ready to take on the world!

dEUS is based in Antwerp in Belgium whose only constant members up to the present day’s line up consist of Tom Barman on vocals, and guitars and Klaas Janzoons on keyboards and violin. The rest of the band’s lineup currently consists of Stephane Misseghers, bassist Alan Gevaert and guitarist and backing vocalist Maura Paelowski.

It is dEUS first tour, which seems an eternity since their last graced these shores, but the band certainly did not seem rusty, cranking out old fan favourites as well as a host of new material! After the ‘Ideal Crash Tour’ the band took a lengthy Hiatus and individual band members perused different interests. Tom Barman directed a movie and collaborated with electro DJ CJ Bolland.

Tonight’s support stems from the first ever UK live appearance from ‘Meltheads’ also residing from Antwerp, playing out a grungy all out energy ridden set! Compared to Deus there are more of the Belgium equivalent to ‘The Viagra Boys’ with some shouty, cranked up vocals thrown in to heat up the already packed venue. They are still at the beginning of their career but can kick up a storm on stage!

The dEUS set began promptly with the album title track How to replace it but they’re not a very visual band, only sporting loose shirts and dim lighting with at times barely visible in the strobes and blue light. But it’s all action from the go with some influential sounds and melodies taken straight from ‘The Velvet Underground.’

Lead singer ‘Tom Barman’ bares a statement on stage with his array of foot pedals and harmonic vocals. ‘Man of the House’ sounds promising and punchy. The show panned out perfectly with no long breaks or guitar tuning finishing with a pleased audience to the raged favourite ‘Suds and Soda’ dEUS still have the knack for playing seamlessly and effortlessly to large audiences on stage and never to be missed!