Milagres

Date:  Monday 9th January 2012

Venue:  The Old Blue Last, London EC2A

The next band after Krankenhaus was going to have a lot to live up to. Milagres have been hyped in some sections of the media lately, but would they be up to the comparison?  Well, of course, any such comparison would be monstrously unfair, so it's just as well the Brooklyn band are half a world away from the beloved Wilkinson brothers (and Noble and Woody ;-), aurally and aesthetically as well as geographically (despite what it says here http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/dpfd)

I work late on Monday evenings so only turned up at the ridiculously hot (as is seemingly usual upstairs at the Old Blue Last) room in time to catch the last couple of songs of the support band, Vadoinmessico, a five-piece band whose members come from various corners of the globe.  The songs I heard were an engaging kind of psychedelic-folk, and they seemed thrilled to be there, so they get extra points for displaying a nice attitude.

On the whole I was impressed with Milagres without being totally bowled over.  More than half the set was very good, but many of the other songs were somewhat underwhelming.  To be fair, perhaps these could be better characterised as works in progress - the intensity and ambition of their sound is such that it could easily fill larger venues in time, but at the same time the songs didn't really grab me. Front-man Kyle Wilson gave a committed demonstration of his high pitched falsetto-style voice (which does sound a bit like Chris Marton from Coldplay).  If you saw them without hearing them, you'd probably say they were from Brooklyn, and vice versa.  Other reference points that occurred to me were Grizzly Bear and Antlers, and they had one song (I think "Halfway") which could conceivably perk the interest of Wild Beasts' lawyer.

On tonight's evidence Milagres are good enough to stand separately, and the band rightly seemed to have a quiet confidence in their material, but I guess only time will tell.  I look forward to getting acquainted with their UK debut album Glowing Mouth (released on the 10th but on sale here).  The vinyl LP was purchased for the bargainous price of £10 - thank you Memphis Industries!

Picture by @thelawes