Model/Actriz live at Brudenell Social Club review – high camp horror from a true one-off

In the heteronormative world of punk music New Yorkers Model/Actriz offer something genuinely new and transgressive – techno-fuelled post-punk tracks about gender dysphoria, diva worship and repressed homosexuality. Cole Haden’s magnetic stage presence and his band’s supernaturally tight industrial grooves made for a truly singular performance at the Brude.

The stage at Brudenell Social Club is not big enough for Cole Haden. Early on at this remarkable evening of exceptionally aggressive music he’s crouching at the front of the stage, caressing concertgoers with delicate fingertips as if testing the waters of an icy lake. Before long, he’s diving in head first, and the crowd instinctively parts as he saunters through us, occasionally pausing to lock eyes with a startled fan and whisper one of his sinister lyrics into their ear. Up close and personal and away from the stage’s veil of smoke I get a good chance to take in his outfit – a sequined leotard under a torn-up black hoodie with tassels dangling from the sleeves like extra limbs, and futuristic wraparound sunglasses that mask the entire middle third of his face. Later he dons a twin-peaked cloth cap like a court jester, then a white hat with long, drooping bunny ears. It is at once delightfully flamboyant and deadly serious. When Haden later demands “Imagine me absolutely soaked / Dripping head to toe in Prada Sport” on Diva, one of several of the band’s unflinchingly sensuous tracks, the effect is not playful sexiness, but a raw, carnal fear. Ignore Haden’s performance at your peril – he might even search you out in the crowd.

Haden’s fashion is a perfect complement to his band’s music – severity and flamboyance are what Model/Actriz does best, and their ability to combine the two in their strange, monstrous songs is unlike anything I’ve come across before. Their songs might qualify for the broad church of ‘post-punk’, but just as influential on the Model/Actriz sound is oppressive Berlin-inspired techno. Aaron Shapiro’s bass guitar perpetually throbs to the beat of Ruben Radlauer’s unremitting kick drum, and the result is so ear-splittingly loud there are moments when you can literally hear the Brudenell sound system straining against the monumental power of it all. Frontman Cole Haden may rightly be the centre of attention for tonight’s show, but just as impressive are his modestly dressed bandmates, whose ability to switch between intricate, rhythm-first dance grooves on a dime seems borderline telepathic. Every last semiquaver is scrupulously accounted for.

Still, it’s hard to take your eyes off Haden. He opens with Vespers, which cloaks superbly melodic disco hooks in a thick chainmail of subterranean bass and hellish, avant garde guitar interludes. Mosquito follows and finally sparks an initially reluctant mosh pit. The wild audience response is no surprise – Mosquito’s studio recording is potent stuff, but in the flesh the rapid groove and crushing chorus (“With a body count / Higher than a mosquito!”) sounds mind-blowingly fierce. Haden karate kicks and punches the air in time with the sickening cymbal hits, and the result is a feverish yet artful depiction of extreme violence.

And yet, Haden claims the primary influences for the band’s recent record Pirouette, which forms the bulk of tonight’s set, are Mariah Carey, Kylie Minogue and Diana Ross. Perhaps there’s hints of that in the strikingly elegant falsetto hooks on Doves or Vespers, or in Haden’s effortless onstage vogueing and clear thirst for performance. He even opens standout number Cinderella with a Vogue-style chant (“Astonishing / Utterly sublime / Exhilarating / Preciously sublime”) before reciting his traumatically neglected wish to have a Cinderella-themed birthday party when he was five. True to Mariah, the overarching message is vaguely empowering – “I can see how my power / Only was my fear of betrayal” – but it comes wrapped in a sense of being “quiet, alone, and devastated”, underscored by Jack Wetmore’s ruthlessly high-pitched guitar. It’s a cocktail of moods so effective you wonder why no one’s attempted it before. Why does punk music have to be so straight? Why does supposed ‘gay music’ have to be so technicolour and playful? Sure, I’m Coming Out is fabulous and all, but isn’t the reality of being marginalised as gay or trans sometimes altogether bleaker? Model/Actriz won’t be releasing a universally beloved gay anthem any time soon, but their music taps into a dark side that very few songs about LGBT issues even attempt to explore.

Such is the specificity of the Model/Actriz formula they risk painting themselves into a corner, and by the time we reach showpiece Crossing Guard – their most accomplished take on propulsive techno, and also the most frightening song about Lady Gaga you’ll ever hear – there’s a sense that we’ve heard all possible variations of queer-industrial-post-punk-techno-rave music. For now though, the sheer novelty and artistic boldness of their music ensures this performance is gripping right the way through. Quite where the band go from here is hard to figure out – a third album of hypnotic grooves and campy whispers might feel like retreading old ground – but if anyone has the creative vision and unshakable conviction to pull off another act of musical trailblazing, it’s Haden and co.