With a name like Rubella it would be all too easy to talk of fevers, inoculations and a coming epidemic but we’ll leave that to others. The all-girl-London-punk trio look slightly tired as they prepare to play their second gig of the day, having come straight from Connolly’s to the Blue Room.
The cuteness of their St Trinians-style uniforms of blazers and ruby bows, tempered by grunge essentials of Converse shoes, is disarming and makes the furious explosion of sound that follows all the more alarming.
The lead vocalist has perfected the prerequisite look of bored indifference as she bangs out the back-to-basics three chords required of punk bands. During Napalm she sings of children running from the terror of Agent Orange while the bass player ferociously screams the song’s title.The grim subject matter continues with new single Arbeit, and a chorus of “Arbeit Macht Frei” or work brings freedom, the words that greeted prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.
The sound is let down at times by some poor drumming as the tiny frame of the girl in the chair struggles with the timekeeping. This may be down to lack of stamina, and having to play two gigs in a row, but it is a distraction from the eminently likeable songs. Imagine a mixture of Placebo, Yeah Yeahs and Sonic Youth and you get close to the band’s sound. Rubella are certainly one to keep an eye on.
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