Few bands in the world are currently riding such a wave of hype as Jagwar Ma, whose debut LP Howlin’ has had critics worldwide reaching for superlatives.
Featuring members of Lost Valentinos and Ghostwood, promising acts who never quite took the step up to being buzz bands, they’ve already eclipsed the former groups and achieved crossover success.
It’s easy to see why the accolades have flowed – eschewing the darker tones of the work of their earlier bands, Howlin’ is a consistently strong and coherent collection of euphoric, sun-kissed dance anthems, strong on hypnotic melodies and blissed out rhythms that variously recall The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays and early 90s Primal Scream, but always done with a panache that means it never comes across as retro pastiche.
All this should mean this sold-out show, part of their first headline tour on home soil, should be greeted with feverish excitement, but the atmosphere was surprisingly flat and despite a pocket of fervent supporters dancing energetically in front of the stage, many seemed disinterested and were happy to talk through the performance.
Playing as a three-piece with touring member Jack Freeman on bass, they begin with ‘What Love’ which builds slowly but surely into a thumping, hypnotic rhythm and pulls you in with a looping melody.
They’re soon onto their most poppy moment, with the sugary hooks of ‘Man I Need’, an addictive ear worm of a song which gets one of the better crowd responses of the night. It’s hard not to sing along to its lyrics, which alternate between slightly psychedelic and purely silly “I‘m about to submerge the ocean / And resurrect the sky” and exuberant “Let me show you babe, just all the man I can be!”
Leaving out the uncharacteristically introspective album closer ‘Backwards Berlin’, this was a short set which focused exclusively on the warm, good times vibe of the likes ‘Exercise’ which benefits from a maximalist approach and a funky, strutting bass line and ‘Come Save Me’ which has a washed out feel and cool, detached vocals floating above handclaps and woozy synths.
This is genuinely huge music, and its communal feel is perhaps better suited to the swarming masses and open skies of a festival than a mid-sized club. Still, there’s nothing to really dent the band’s burgeoning reputation as a slick live act and ‘Four’ which sees Gab Winterfield use his voice more as percussion or another element of the mix shows there are a whole range of tricks up their collective sleeve.
It’s one of their more dancefloor-ready tunes, a reminder that the laptop is as important a part of their arsenal as the Fender jaguars that inspired their moniker.
‘Let Her Go’ suggests The Beatles’ Revolver as another touchstone while they look to the other great northern English city of Manchester for ‘The Throw’ a mini-epic of baggy elation which finds them aiming for, and reaching, a sense of complete abandon.
The encore consists of a single song, the jangly, summery ‘This Loneliness’, another of their songs to pull off the trick of sounding familiar on first listen but also feeling fresh enough to entice repeat listens.
Impressive enough stuff, but you get the definite feeling that this band’s rapid rise is far from over, and bigger and more receptive crowds are on the horizon.
