When this tour was announced earlier on in the year, this was a atypical main band / support act affair. Bossk were the main attraction and Dvne were along for the ride to make up the numbers. However, this all changed as the word of mouth about the incredible “Etemen Ænka” spread like wildfire. Critics and punters alike fell over themselves to heap praise on this album and the queue to get to witness them live at last month’s Damnation Festival (review here) was extraordinary.

So by the time we get to this jaunt around the country the audience is here as much to witness these up and coming Scots (via France) than they are for the dependable mainstay that is Bossk. Now Bossk could have got all up their collective selves about this shift in fortunes, but instead they have had the good grace to give Dvne as much stage time as they have allotted themselves and turn tonight’s show here at Manchester’s Deaf Institute into a double header by any other name.

Dvne just about fit onto the upstairs venue’s tiny stage. In fact, guitarist and co-vocalist Dan Barter spends a good proportion of the set stood playing on the steps leading up to the stage. It may seem a little sycophantic to start throwing around superlatives at this stage, but this evening Dvne are nothing short of extraordinary. My knowledge around actual musical technic is sketchy at best (I concentrate on how the music makes me feel as opposed to how it is produced) but even I can tell that Dvne are doing something radically different with our beloved musical structures.

As far as I can tell the guitar strains of Victor Vicart intertwined with the pounding beats of Dudley Tait are playing the part of the rhyme section, allowing the thumping bass of Allan Patterson to head of into the nether. As said, I’m usually oblivious to these things, but my bass slapping colleague Matti spends most of the set rocking from side to side, despondently muttering to himself over and over again “you can’t do that with a bass, you can’t do that with a bass”. 

The keyboards are also contorted into an unrecognizable shape. Usually, synth in prog is there for this big theatrical flourishes. There is none of that here, instead Evelyn May’s keys are restrained but crucial. They play such a decisive part in Dvne’s sound that you actually don’t hear them but you know that the whole thing would collapse in they weren’t there. The point is that this highly complex but also organic sounding. There are multiple moving parts creating this tapestry of gorgeous sound. Some of the time you can discern how it is all being created but for most of the set it felt like they were summoning these heavenly sonic harmonies from out of thin air.

It is utterly exhilarating to watch as they weave these textured strains of utter wonderment. The audience is a mixture of mouth open-wide rapture and nodding heads. There is quite simply something magical and un-worldly about what Dvne are doing. Its Prog but its also not Prog. It mixes traits from both the new techy and the vintage warm organ-driven variants of the genre (third track Sì-XIV sounds to these ears like Camel with add gruff vocals) but also fiercely ploughs its own distinctive furrow. Essentially there is currently nobody quite like them and tonight by gleefully and agilely sharing the spotlight with Bossk they have showed that they are more than ready for the inevitable next step.

Bossk sound like they are soundtracking a yet to be made dystopian Si-fi movie. They create a veil of intricate sound that envelopes the audience taking them on a winding aural journey. And then Sam Marsh steps on stage. What puts Bossk aside from all the other introspective cosmonauts creating meandering instrumental atmospherics is that they have a turbo button. You think you are in for a gentle lilting journey through the musical stratosphere and then Sam steps up and all hell is unleashed. It happens during every single track tonight (apart from the final number), but still every single time I find it a disconcerting side-swipe to the head. Sam’s vocal delivery is coarse and granular. This is nothing to do with vocal storytelling and instead his primal growl propels the music to new heights and new depths. Each time he steps forward to the mic the track in question careers forward. He is vocal nitric oxide, a shot of acapella rocket fuel.

Bossk are a heavier and darker proposition than Dvne. As I stated before they feel like Prog reinterpreted for a world on the edge of self-made destruction. This is music to accompany showreels of melting icecaps and burning raining forests. With Dvne the word divine is a perfect fit, but for Bossk it feels weak and ill-fitting. What we hear tonight is not beautiful. It might be gloriously constructed and full to the brim with gorgeous orchestration, but it is too dark, mournful and unrepentantly angry to be divine. This is a soundtrack for a world condemned to perpetually repeat its own mistakes again and again and again and again. Desperate, despondent but also bloody brilliant. Tonight, was a night of two extraordinary sonic soundscapes. One full of strokes of soaring exquisiteness and the other full of despairing rage, but both utterly utterly extraordinary.