10 Dec 2025
James Cameron returns to The Horn to catch the no-longer-young nineties rockers…
I was recently lucky enough to be at the sold out show by an Oxford band from the 90s that everyone has been talking about. That’s right, I went to see Young Knives at The Horn, and was very glad I did (and not just because I didn’t have to make it back from Greenwich).
The problem with featuring the word ‘Young’ in your name is that everything ages (cf Fine Young Cannibals and Paul Young), and that very definitely includes the audience. Queueing up, I seemed to be surrounded by a battalion of balding, bearded men with glasses, a battalion I am a proud member of. As was the support artist, the excellently named Xavier Leret.
Leret looked like a ginger Elvis Costello, albeit in a very natty shirt, but when he opened his mouth to sing the result was surprisingly husky. He seemed to be channeling Tom Waits, or latter period Bob Dylan, and the songs seemed to take on a similar persona of a gruff Southern American bluesman.
This did not feel genuine, though, especially when his between songs chat was conducted in a broad West Country accent. Towards the end of the set he seemed to drift more towards folkishness, and this was more powerful and convincing. Ironically the song with the most life was the slightly grotesque ‘Frankenstein’, which imagined removing the subject of the song’s head before reattaching it so he could then shoot the person who had obviously attracted his ire (potentially an unsympathetic reviewer).
The economics of the music industry often mean that support acts are solo affairs, and this was the case here. Leret was a very accomplished guitarist, and his blues-style picking was impressive, but I couldn’t help but miss the interplay between musicians and instruments that you get with a full group. One man and his guitar can feel a little insular.
At the end of his set Leret was just about to launch into a love song when he was abruptly told he didn’t have time and had to leave the stage. This felt a bit brutal, but is probably a good metaphor for the music industry as a whole and also cleared the stage (literally) for Young Knives.
The main event bounded onto stage with vim and vigour, looking like a Queen tribute band arranged for an end of term party at a physics department. The energy they bought with them was great, and they soon had the large crowd along with them on their slightly idiosyncratic journey.
If they are now more like the Middle Aged Knives, they definitely didn’t let it slow them down.
Early song ‘Barbarians’ cut through the crowd with swathes of powerful Zeppelin-like licks.
‘Cause and Effect’ featured a discussion between guitarist and singer Harry Dartnall and a shark glove pupper that evolved into a diatribe.
Dartnall was the consummate frontman, dressed in a vest and what he claimed were definitely skating kneepads and not for gardening, and engaging with the crowd between songs. He also had some great sibling banter with bassist and keyboardist, the intriguingly named The House of Lords. At times this reached the level of family therapy, so I hope they have worked out some childhood issues during the show.
Not-related drummer Mike Monaghan kept the energy up, despite looking worryingly like Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall.
Young Knives have a very varied back-catalogue, which they showed off with the slinky and beguiling chorus of ‘Love the Knives’ and the reflective ‘Your Car Has Arrived’. This tribute to his son’s dead schoolfriend shows the benefits of age, where you can appreciate the slower things in life and not everything needs to be mad jumping up and down.
It reminded me of where the Arctic Monkeys have reached on their latest album ‘The Car’, for possibly obvious reasons.
The crowd were definitely on the same page, they were a happy crowd but not a jumping up and down crowd. I wonder, though, if this is down to where we are in the gigging season. As it gets chillier out it is difficult to travel to venues without a coat, and once there if there is no cloakroom you are left with a drink in one hand and a coat over the other which definitely limits your boogying options. As I say, though, this is not necessarily a bad thing, and whilst some songs like ‘No Sound’ have the driving beats to make make it pogo-worthy, others are perfect for gently swaying to.
As we approached the end we got a nice local shout-out to the guard who executed St Alban before his eyes fell out, a familiar figure to anyone who’s had their children traumatised by the annual parade, which showed some effort towards localisation that was appreciated.
You could definitely tell that the band had put a shift in by the end by the steam coming off Dartnell, and from The House of Lords’ collection of keyboards and magic boxes (which does seem like an odd sentence to write). For their encore they mixed up the tempo some more, starting with the relatively chilled ‘Taste of Venom’ before delivering a manic one-two smash of ‘The Decision’ and ‘Weekends and Bleak Days’.
My philosophy on ageing is that it can be a positive thing, if you accept that stage of your life that you’re at and appreciate it for exactly what it is. Whilst this might not be where they envisaged themselves ending up when they were Young Knives, they seem comfortable with still being able to share their beautiful and unusual music with willing recipients. They are definitely leaving St Albans with at least one more dedicated fan who was delighted to be introduced to their world.
