My Luminaries

Catching lots of new bands this way and everyway, some good, some bad, some so awfully indifferent you wonder why they didn’t just stay at home, you can risk becoming desensitised to the whole process.

If you’ll allow my cynicism for a moment, it sometimes feels that if there’s no flowing pool of hyperbole, record-label masterminded publicity-drive or ridiculous, in-your-face gimmickry involved to shove you out of apathy, most new talent will flow past you like water under a bridge. Even if one does catch your eye, it’s going to need one of those three things I’ve just mentioned for you to convince anyone else of its worth.

It’s more a symptom of society than of bands themselves, and, hey, I’m being cynical so just write me off as an old curmudgeon if you disagree (I‘m only 21), but it’s a pain in the arse no less.

My Luminaries are worthy of hyperbole, and I fucking love bigging stuff up so here we go. Split between Manchester and Reading, the flighty four piece sound as lofty as Muse without the pretence or weird Sci-Fi geek chic. They’re as explorative and eclectic as Radiohead, but do it without the untouchable status. They’re topped off with an unexpected eccentricity that’s like Arcade Fire after a good holiday, where the only hiccup was the accordion getting lost in transit. They’ve got big tunes and they’re bloody brilliant.

Just back from a weekend partying in Amsterdam, they overcome hangovers and tiredness on the modest Metro stage. Drummer Sam sits atop a raised platform, beating the shit out of his kit in a scene reminiscent to the opening moments of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the great apes beat bones to the earth under the shadow of a space-sent monolith. In this analogy, it’s the music that’s monolithic.

Identical twins Dylan and Saul operate guitars, bass and keyboards like future-scientists programming pulsating logarithms in built environments, engineers of sound to score a life filled with equal doses of romance, idealism, mystery and intrigue.

James ties the euphoric orchestrals together with a voice that soars. From ‘Petrol Station Union’’s path-beaten highway heartache to ‘Jumping The Great White’s triumphant love-crunching riff theory, My Luminaries are from the school of Utopian Indie, where they’re taught music sincere enough will change the world.

In world bereft of sensibility or subtlety, dogged with commodity fetishism and indignant, righteous consumerism, it’s a COLD SPRING MORNING FREEING UP YOUR LUNGS to witness a band as earnestly extravagant and usefully utopian as this lot.

Is that enough hyperbole for you? Go check ‘em out.

FUTURE GIGS

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