The Maccabees

You no longer have to be an accomplished vocalist to be in a successful band. That’s not to say that The Maccabees front man Orlando Weeks isn’t talented, far from it. His style is open, frank and honest. Every line is drawn from the depths of his life experience. Although only 22 years old, he sings about what he knows best; conformity, girls and swimming pools! However it is difficult to see how these lads are going to distinguish themselves from the other acts that have tried and failed here before.

Danceable beats and anthemic choruses make The Maccabees fantastic indie nightclub fodder; however there just isn’t the spark there to make you want more. There are a couple of thunderous tracks in the form of ‘Precious Time’ and ‘About your dress’ which leave you unable to control the nodding of your head and tapping of your foot. You want to sing along; if only it was possible to understand what he was singing about, the vocals swallowed up by the rhythm section. The Rescue Rooms was a good venue for a band like this. Up close, sweaty and a bar that sells cans of Red Stripe; the sorts of things that are the bread and butter of British indie culture.

They clearly have a sound of their own but each song appears to follow a similar formula and that gives a very homogeneous feeling to the whole thing. After the first 3 or 4 songs of the set you begin to wonder what else they can pull out of the bag. It sounds strange, I really want to like this band but there is something in the way and no matter how hard I think I can’t put my finger on it. All the right ingredients are there however they just don’t gel.

There is a new fashion emerging, a kind of indie snobbery if you like. Everyone wants to be the first to discover the newest band on the block. To be able to drop a band name in a conversation that you know no one else will have heard of. I’m not sure if this is the product of the explosion of new bands in the UK or if the indie scene is a victim of its own success. With so much music on the shelves it’s a dog eat dog world and The Maccabees don’t have the edge needed to break into the mainstream, but maybe it’s not ‘cool’ to be mainstream anymore.

An all encompassing tour awaits these lads from Brighton including several dates supporting Bloc Party in the states. Their own biography admits that their sound is “quintessentially English”, Americans love the English accent although this by no means assures them of a warm welcome.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.