There’s much to like straight away about a band who make a point of waiting for Ghost Rider by Suicide to play over the PA before hitting a note. Released in 1977, that song is twice the age of Edinburgh 19-year-olds guitarist/vocalist Chris Bainbridge and drummer Michael Reid, who launch their debut single tonight as Man of Moon, cramped on to a tiny stage that could barely take more members if they wanted it to. It speaks to the frightening speed and ease with which today’s internet-raised youth access and process culture that Alan Vega’s echo-drenched vocals are just one tasteful reference point among many effortlessly absorbed into this band’s noirish, droney krautrock and post-rock cannibalising sound.
Royal Blood are an obvious comparison in respect of being a similarly economical duo. But where the Brightoners favour power and punch in their playing and arrangements, this pair prefer subtlety and space. Bainbridge flips Royal Blood frontman Mike Kerr’s trick of making a bass do a guitar’s work by thickening his gleaming-toned electric guitar sound through a bass amp. His playing is Man of Moon’s most evocative quality, channelling Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky in the crisp, clean melodies of When I Wake, and Queens of the Stone Age in the sludgier, riffier moments. His vocals are a less finely tuned instrument but serve their purpose well, to almost mystic folky effect in the droning intro to Slide Away.
The effect is transportational, until the power blows out midway through the set, necessitating a frustrating pause. Consider, too, that their debut seven-inch, The Road, isn’t actually on sale tonight because, explains Bainbridge in a thick Edinburgh accent, “the Czech Republic fucked up”‚ with delays in pressing, and fortune doesn’t seem to be on their side. But when they eventually close with said terrific doomy kraut-psych jam as their friends headbang down the front, bad luck feels like about the only thing that can halt this young twosome on their rapid rise.
* At Belladrum festival, Inverness, 8 August and Electric Fields festival, Dumfries, 29 August.
