Larks in the Park revival gig - 25th September 2005, newspaper cutting
Tonight it sounds like someone's spiked the Liverpool water supply with bad acid. There's a story going round that Chiba Sprawl's drummer totalled his car on black ice half an hour before the sound-check.
If that's what ignited his incendiary performance tonight then here's a man who needs to crash a car every day before breakfast. Or maybe he always plays this way.
Whatever, there's a little bit of magic in the air as Chiba Sprawl take to the stage finally after a long evening of stereotypical scouse Coral-ling by a couple of bands I cant even remember the names of...
What I do remember is a glow, a shine, the howling of electricity through skeleton melodies - Chiba Sprawl sound like they've found something in the night, made darkness visible for a little while: I swear there's no cooler shakers in town right now.
Catch them quick before the drummer loses his licence.
Elliot Frayn, Virtual Voice, Feb 2004
Chiba Sprawl have been playing a residency at the Everyman now for quite sometime. Ever since I caught them down in Camden over the summer, I've revisited their work, which I still believe is an untapped area on the local music scene. This was previously justified by their electrifying performance at Bar Hannah a few weeks earlier.
All the usual suspects were there from 'Nightwatchman' to 'Catherine Street'. The band managed to lock into a groove and take no prisoners.