Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s idiosyncratic wail has found a fitting home at the aptly-named Howler. The sequestered Brunswick venue is the backdrop for The Murlocs frontman’s growls, howls, and shrieks at tonight’s high-energy launch of their debut LP, Loopholes.
Speaking of howling, nocturnal emissions might not be a term that springs to mind when describing opening bands, but the generous collection of warm-up acts (local groups Teeth & Tongue, The Frowning Clouds, and DD Dumbo) could well indeed be “a wet dream come true”, to use Kenny-Smith’s own words.
Teeth & Tongue in particular do a fine job of building the anticipation in advance of The Murlocs’ set. Most of tonight’s sold-out crowd gather in the band room for a dose of the group’s strong vocal harmonies and electronic pop meets post-punk drum beats.
The Murlocs then take to the stage with customary swagger and slip straight into a ambling blues rhythm. The volume of Kenny-Smith’s mic is down too low, resulting in his vocals coming through somewhat indistinctly, but this is quickly rectified and the band set about doing what they do best, dishing out their eccentric garage blues rock with slightly unhinged panache.
With a relatively fledgling group like The Murlocs, there’s always going to be a hitch in their giddy-up, and battle between good and evil for this band pits the strength of their frontman against the occasional patchiness of their songwriting.
The kid is a star, there’s no doubt about it – baby-faced he may be, but the charismatic Kenny-Smith possesses the kind of distinctive voice around which a band’s entire sound can be built.
The building is still in the construction phase, and with Loopholes, the band set a hard task for themselves in having to flesh out live songs that at their core, are sometimes a little hollow.
This is compounded by the fact that the group play their trump card perhaps a touch too early, leaving them with nowhere higher to go. The excellent ‘Space Cadet’ is the third song of the set and it’s a track that best shows the songwriting promise the group is capable of; Kenny-Smith’s voice radiates on the clear, catchy melody, and the sauntering, surf-rock tinged 4×4 beat is a source of effortless momentum.
Title track ‘Loopholes’ is likewise a highlight, with a hulking, ominous bassline combining with the rhythmic snap of the snare drum on a formidable blues excursion.
Elsewhere it’s evident that the Loopholes output is a little more inconsistent. The new single ‘Paranoid Joy’ is something of an oddity; its skittish psychedelic guitar jangle contrasts the band’s more blues-based tracks, and though well-received by the audience, the song trips up the flow of the set.
Where The Murlocs consolidate their live talent is from within the familiarity of their older material. The slowed down, swampy blues recalls links to their other outfit, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, with echoing vocal effects and a fiery rhythm bolstered by drummer Matt Blach.
‘Rattle The Chain’ puts Kenny-Smith’s harp skills to good use, and the wash of tremolo guitar is a welcome variation on the sometimes-stagnant r n’ b pattern the band follow on their newer material.
‘Tee Pee’ comes towards the end of the set and is a crowd favourite, with the group clearly feeling settled into the dirty, rough-hewn garage-psychedelic rock and crashing cymbals.
There’s a plus and a minus in tonight’s equation, sure, but with just a little more time, it won’t take a genius to work out that The Murlocs have all the components of a winning formula.
Read the review of Loopholes by The Murlocs here
