‘I’m amazed they’re not knackered,’ an audience member remarked as the members of Vołosi enjoyed a final bow to rapturous applause. Indeed, this Polish five-piece commit to their rocket-fuelled, high-energy interpretation of traditional music with a nerve-shredding intensity that leaves them near breathless at each song’s close. 

Within their constant sprints of energy and maximalist showboating are three distinct tonal registers: the first strikes an arch heroic stance where the band dynamics can be keenly felt, with viola player Jan Kaczmarzyk and violinist Krzysztof Lasoń passing lead duties back and forth with the vigour of a world-grade tennis match. The second is a more spectral display, in which shrieking atonal noise wins out over sense-making harmony. 

Yet it’s the third register that receives the most enthusiastic response: a hyper-real collision of folk, classic and jazz played at heavy-metal speed. It’s almost tempting to think of the grand seated environ of The Hub as a waste for this kind of music; these five exceptional talents should be stirring an appreciative crowd into a frenzy in some smoky bar with a packed dancefloor. Their mission is to drag traditional folk into the contemporary era, but in doing so they’ve conjured the restless chaos that lurks beneath its surface. 

Vołosi reviewed at The Hub; main picture: Jess Shurte.