Cabaret Voltaire
The ICA
★★★★

“WE will not allow any dancing, running up and down the aisle, is that clear with everybody?”… the ominous intro from The Voice Of America signals the welcome resurgence of legendary Sheffield industrialists Cabaret Voltaire to the live arena, sparked by the return to the fold of Chris Watson, who left the band in 1981 for some rather different sonic adventures, not least becoming David Attenborough’s sound recordist.

Watson and vocalist Stephen Mallinder co-founded the band in 1973 with Richard H Kirk who died in 2021 and the set, a celebration of the band’s impressive and wide-ranging legacy ahead of a Final Tour in 2026, is dedicated to Kirk’s memory.

Although the looming shadow of Kirk’s absence is keenly felt, longterm Cabs compadre Eric Random expertly recreates his spindly, sinister guitar lines and with a line-up that is completed by percussionist Oliver Harrap. They might be playing music more than four decades old but still sound like they’re plugging into the zeitgeist.

The jagged funk of 24-24, and the prescient paranoiac grooves of Crackdown, pre-empted by a sample from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, Animation and Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself), all taken from 1983’s groundbreaking The Crackdown album seem remarkably contemporary, both in theme and execution.

The setlist is refreshingly varied too, charting the band’s voyage from avant-garde experimentalists to techno pioneers, from the sinister churn of The Set Up from their debut 1978 EP to the luxuriant house grooves of 1989’s Easy Life, to a backdrop of Dan Conway’s impressively dystopian cut-up visuals.

And there’s room for a deeper dive into the Cabs discography too, not least a splendidly serpentine Spies In The Wire, the knife-edge tension of Landslide from 1981’s Red Mecca, and a sinewy, funked up Sex Money Freaks.

It’s not all nostalgia though, as the band roll out a new track of sorts called Tinsley Viaduct, based on a 2012 Watson sound collage, that melds dark ambience and musique concrete and references Sheffield’s groundbreaking two-tier bridge that notably is also the site where the Russian megaton bomb hits in apocalyptic BBC drama Threads.

The evening ends on a joyous note — a thrilling run through of electro-punk classic Nag Nag Nag and an adrenalised take on dancefloor “hit” Sensoria is followed by the whole audience singing “Happy Birthday” to a slightly mortified Watson.

For a band whose musical roots are steeped in paranoia, confrontation and noise terrorism the Cabs still know how to bring the party.