Preaching to the converted

Reverend and the Makers are back with their fifth album 'Mirrors'. Never really ones to get much media attention yet still manage to sell out venues across the country, this is their first album that is critically acclaimed across the board from journalists and fellow musicians alike.

We missed first support act 'Lock', but were assured by some new friends that the all girl three piece were definitely ones to check out. We did however see 'Franko Fraize', a very endearing mouthy young upstart from Norfolk who is here with his band and his mate helping out on vocals. There is definitely a Mike Skinner shaped hole in music these days and this is definitely the man to fill it, nice yellow mac also. New single 'Oi Oi' finished up his set and he leaves us and it seems everyone else in the room wanting to hear more. We'll definitely be checking him out when he's next in town on his own tour.

A nicely warmed up crowd are ready for Reverend and the Makers as they open with 'Mirrors' opener 'Amsterdam' , things kick off nicely, with the crowd truly ready to go nuts as they go straight into 'Open Your window' off their debut. This is not a typical midweek crowd, five minutes in and the crowd are bouncing from front to back and the Reverend John McClure does a good job of preaching to the already converted!

One of the great things about this band is that they're not only a band with a husband and wife in it, they're all clearly a good gang of mates. Guitarist Ed Cosens plays 'First To Know' on acoustic showing that they're a band capable of turning their hand from dancefloor fillers to gentle meaningful ballads. They've also got Joe Carnall Jnr on bass, known and revered by much of the crowd as being the frontman of Sheffield favourites Milburn and who is now back with a new band playing under his own name*. Joe takes the vocals on 'Something to Remember' and shares with the Reverend on latest single 'Mr Glassalfempty'.

They are keeping with the spirit of 'Mirrors' where all tracks virtually go straight into one another with no let up by playing tonight's sets with the same principles. As the Reverend says "we should be playing much larger venues than this, but until then we're just going to play you banger after banger after banger", which sums up the rest of the set perfectly as they run through 'Bandits', 'He Said He Loved Me' and 'Silence is Talking', the riff of which was being chanted all through the venue from when we first walked in.

Not content with finishing things there, the Reverend makes his way through the crowd with his acoustic guitar and leads a few hundred fans outside to the streets of Camden, stopping traffic to lead a mass singalong of 'A Message To You Rudy'.

Reverend and the Makers have shown they're one of the best live bands around with Jon McClure also being one of the best frontmen. They certainly lived up to the reviews of 'Mirrors' and we're confident that it won't be long before they will be playing the bigger venues they deserve to, Brixton Academy is calling!

*Joe Carnall Jnr's new demo's are online at https://soundcloud.com/joecarnalljnr , check out 'Times New Roman', we've had it on repeat all week. "Don't be the one to let freud slip, pick him up, pick him up, pick him up".

COMMENTS

• Daniel Sado
  Very talented!