As the lights dimmed on a sold-out crowd, packed to the
rafters for Mutemath’s virgin performance to not only Melbourne, but Australia;
necks craned between the shoulder-to-shoulder masses to get a peep of the band
emerging on stage.
Instead, they marched in from the back corner of the venue,
where The Cairos had just finished their rocking support slot, under a parade
of fairy lights and clattering percussion.
A special entrance that signposted the magic to come.
Once on-stage, the newly-bearded drummer Darren King
performed his ritual of taping his monitors to his head, making him look like a
boxer before a match; or in Mutemath’s case, a title fight considering the
blistering endurance of their live show.
Later frontman Paul Meany declares “we’ve got a lot of songs
to play,” and he’s not kidding, in what turns out to be a 26-strong setlist
that went for nearly two hours without a break. Including everything except the
Jamiroquai-fronting-Zeppelin fireworks of ‘Allies,’ but it’d have been churlish
to complain given the vibrant musicality and passionate delivery on display.
The New Orleans group wasted no time launching into the same
brilliant trifecta that opens their latest record, Odd Soul. Namely,
wowing the awed crowd with the title track, the relentless groove of ‘Prytania’
and ‘Blood Pressure.’ It went a long way to loosening up the crowd with an
extended coda of rhythmic hammering that first demonstrated the sheer
knuckle-white tightness of the quartet.
So watertight is their synergy that it makes their daring
leaps of style and mood look easy, or more philosophically, an audience trusts
a band who trusts each other. Allowing Mutemath to hop from searing prog-lite
rockers (Plan B, Walking Paranoia) to slow, moody numbers (Lost Year, Picture)
and even some experimental moments. Particularly on the reggae-inflected
‘Peculiar People’ where Meany samples the audience’s cheers before looping,
pitch-shifting and throwing them back into the mix.
Though always an able keys player and soul-tinged singer, Meany
has now evolved into quite the showman. Between-song he charms with affable
banter, while during ‘Spotlight’ he leads the audience through some I sing/you
sing theatrics which, by the end, have the crowd eating out of the palm of his
hand.
Though Meany admits “it’s becoming a cliché” they dedicate
‘Sun Ray’ to the recently deceased Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch. Not more than a beautiful
two minute mood piece on record, live, ‘Sun Ray’ - like most compositions
tonight - is stretched into a meatily satisfying display of technical chops and
irresistible groove.
‘Equals,’another highlight, finds the frontman wading out to
the sound desk, where he sings emphatically over the electronically flourished
ballad as confetti is blown out around him.
Though he is the audience’s conduit, it is the rhythm
section of King and Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas that steal the show. That’s not to
take away from Meany or guitarist Todd Gunnery’s deft contributions, but
there’s no doubting the rhythmic heart that beats ferociously at the centre of
Mutemath belongs to the bass and drums.
King’s beats snake and shuffle in the background when
required but he’s an absolute monster on the skins when he wants to be.
Meanwhile, Mitchell-Cárdenas’ basslines look spidery, but sound buttery-smooth;
or as it demands it, punch with a satisfying pop and crunch.
Given that he looked like a young Walter Becker (of Steely
Dan), combined with the faint waft of pot in the air and the band’s fierce
blues rock, you’d be forgiven for
thinking you’d been teleported to a seventies night-club. Disregarding the
bobbing sea of smartphone screens attempting to capture the band’s explosive
playing.
As they careen through their set, you catch snatches of their
influences. Are they a psychedelic funk band playing loose blues? A jazz-rock outfit
with more groove than grit? It’s hard to tell, and it matters little. It's a
thoroughly joyful fusion.
The middle of their set sees them steering towards their
older material, and by association some of their Coldplay-baiting ballads like
‘Control’ or the lingering influence of The Police on fan-favourites
like ‘Chaos’ and the high-speed ‘Noticed.’
Their strongest material however, is easily the
genre-defying alchemy they’ve achieved with Odd Soul, or what Meany described in our recent interview as “just acing what we do live.”
Songs with frameworks that are compact enough to digest, yet
possess a flexible structure that exercise their improvisational skills.
‘Cavalries’’ chugging back-end is elongated to a muscular
jam that lurches around sharp rhythmic corners, King even standing on his kit
as a valve-release to their infectious energy.
Meanwhile ‘One More’ and ‘Quarantine’ see them pulling out
every trick they’ve got. The latter even sees Meany risking his safety as he
boards a makeshift raft that floats across a sea of audience hands. At one
point, some eager punters ignore the low-roof, sending the singer’s head into
the lighting rig. But like a true hero, he soldiers on unhindered.
Seconds later and King is dismantling his kit, piece by piece, to redistribute it to the front row for a brief but incendiary solo, then reconvening the band around his fragmented drums for a full percussive meltdown.
Seconds later and King is dismantling his kit, piece by piece, to redistribute it to the front row for a brief but incendiary solo, then reconvening the band around his fragmented drums for a full percussive meltdown.
Their encore includes a reading of Alicia Keys’ ‘Falling’ as
a psychelicious blues standard, followed by the sprawling instrumental opus of
‘Reset.’ The resulting answer to ‘what If Sigur Rós were a funk troupe with a
penchant for glitchtronica?’
As they depart the stage in a sweaty heap, Mutemath have earned
the adoration and respect of all present, but also the title: ‘must-see live
act’.
Cavalries
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