Would spending Halloween night at Rough Trade watching six musicians with tights over their heads turn out to be a mistake? Roisin Turner decided to find out...
Last Saturday I was confronted with a question as old as time: just what is the best way to spend Halloween night in Nottingham? Perhaps you spent the evening drinking in one of our many bars or shepherding trick-or-treaters through the suburbs. I ended up in the attic of Rough Trade, watching a six-piece band from Cambridge wear ladies’ tights over their heads while they sang intricate harmonies and played a set ranging from smooth jazz to chamber pop. Ugly (UK) are the band in question, and they are one of England’s most deserving recipients of the 10-year overnight success moniker.
Formed in 2016 among college students, Ugly began life as a hard-edged post-rock project, but after limited success and feelings of stagnation among members, underwent a self-imposed hiatus in 2022. Two years later they returned with an EP, Twice Around the Sun, marking a new sound, softer but no less dramatic. Now, the group have finally released their debut LP The South Facade, and are ready to hit the ground running on their release tour.
The openers were a duo named Max and Felix who I had not previously heard of, and who leaned into a sprechstimme monologue delivery paired with acoustic guitar and cello. Max was a considerable talent on guitar, playing complicated chords and arpeggiated melodies with ease.
While their confidence was to be admired, I was under the impression that the pair are not quite sure what they wish to embody musically. I wish them good luck, as trial and error performance can be an excellent way to find out, and would be curious to see them again.
When Ugly took the stage, the first thing I noticed was that each member had fashioned themselves a balaclava-like mask out of beige nylon-tights (purchased in our very own Long Row Primark, according to guitarist Harrison Jones). This was an apparent Halloween costume - possibly a reference to Mindhunter or Manhunter, lost in translation. Vocalist Jasmine-Miller Sauchella confessed the get-up made it virtually impossible to see, which, if anything, added to the impressiveness of their one hour set, played with impenetrable musicality from each member.
Ugly are characterised by their use of rich harmonies, with vocal duties shared between guitarist Samuel Goater, synthesist Tom Lane, bassist Harry Shapiro and keys player Jasmine Miller-Sauchella. Exemplified on tracks Nat Cora & The Nations and Gallowine, the quartet can pulley their voices into singular conformity at one turn and create sumptuous dissimilarity in the next - note the almost Gregorian vocalisations found in the middle-eight of In Samphedoo. Miller-Sauchella stands out as the only female voice, an asset which Ugly neither waste or overuse.
Unlikely to dwell on a theme for long, their set moved from a staggered, rhythmic Wasteland to the funky refrain of Die Another Day: “Mama always said you were gonna be a dancer/ You got to have sweat and colour between your cheeks”.
Samuel Goater and Harrison Jones are complementary of each other on guitar, although neither quite fits into the conventional labels of lead or rhythm. Goater utlisies “tapping”- a popular technique which involves drumming the fingers across the guitar’s fretboard, creating a loop effect on songs such as Shepherds Carol.
Theo Guttenplan is hard to miss on the drums, maintaining elaborately syncopated beats with an unusual two-snare set up. Bass and keyboard work is generally understated, but Harry Shapiro and Tom Lane are granted opportunities to shine in title track The South Facade. Their sound, both angular and folky, is like Steely Dan meets Steeleye Span: perhaps neither influence is on the cutting edge of indie cool, but to me, the most apt and extremely enjoyable.
The crowning jewel of any Ugly set is Icy Windy Sky, a seven minute track from Twice Around the Sun which encompasses everything I love about the band. Substituting the acoustic guitar and cello of the record with some effect pedals, the sextet put everything they had into the song, which revolts from quiet reflection to ecstatic rapture and back again, their distinct harmonies put to peak use. Once described by Tom Lane as “our interest in ritual performance (...) stretched into something resembling ‘song’” with “a little group-led glossolalia” (speaking in tongues) , it’s not hard to imagine the band swept up in a kind of religious euphoria. If this is a cult, I say sign me up.
Ugly performed at Rough Trade on 31 October 2026
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