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Mumm-Ra take to the stage with an oddly theatrical approach. Dramatic music plays, the band stride on one by one and slowly begin to play. It’s strangely OTT for a band that seem fairly humble, coming across a tad taken aback by the frenzy their arrival generates from a crowd packed full of indie kids clearly looking for the next big thing.
Certainly Mumm-Ra have enough of a quick fire pop pulse with them to suggest they could be headed for stardom and enormous stadia in the not too distant future. There’s a tremendous energy to Mumm-Ra’s songs that propel them onward and they seem to have ripped influences screaming from most musical genres and then given them a fresh lick of paint to brighten them up.
Recent single ‘She’s Got You High’ is a perfect piece of sunshine pop, beguiling, melodic and hummable. Live, it’s utterly irresistible. As is the driving ‘Starlight’, another snappy track that goes from a quiet beginning to featuring both a skyscraper of a chorus and a air guitar solo. It could easily become a festival anthem in future, even if it does bring in some Dad rock style harmonica from the band’s front man Noo at the end.
Of all the band, Noo is the most active, continually leaping around and apparently on a quest to find somewhere, anywhere in Tuts that he can hold onto and dangle from. His constant movement is nearly matched by guitarist James Arguile, whose guitar playing features non stop poses and head thrashing, making him look like a cross between a guitarist and someone trying to demonstrate martial arts. Credit must also to the band’s rhythm section, who fuel the several slow/fast changes that flow along in Mumm-Ra’s songs while a keyboards player joining the original five members means there’s a fullness to the music. Yet nothing is really overwhelmed, everything combining well to create a united noise.
However, Mumm-Ra’s problem is that while everything is relentlessly decent, the gig rarely rises above that level. Straightforward bouncy indie pop like ‘This Is Easy’ and ‘The Sick Deal’ are acceptable but fail to really stick in your mind, easily forgotten. It isn’t that there’s particularly wrong with them but they’re only mildly diverting and simply too generic to make them noticed. Noo also gets chatting away before every song, meaning there’s a constant interruption to the pace of the gig. He’s clearly a nice chap but you really want him to stay quiet for a wee bit and just play some songs. There’s also the anti climatic ending, as after the fast, jerky judder of ‘Out Of The Question’ concludes the band depart, lights still dimmed. They stay dimmed for a good few moments with most of the crowd demanding an encore. Instead, nothing happens, meaning there’s a fairly flat finale.
Still, these negatives aren’t massive problems, they simply mean that Mumm-Ra aren’t a truly great band, only good. They’re still got some fun songs though and may yet move on to greater things but for now they’ll have to settle for being a momentary joy, not a lasting memory.
