The Coronas/The Nankeens

28th November 2012

Ruby Lounge

The Nankeens 

4/10

Their name, at least, is intriguing. An internet search points to two kinds of Australian bird and a yellowed cotton used for a peculiar nineteenth-century trouser style. On the small Ruby Lounge stage, fenced with instruments, The Nankeens don’t look particularly avian – nor do they much resemble yellow trousers. In fact, as they launch into ‘Over’, the opening chords whining with feedback, they present pretty much like the stock start-up Indie band.

Wearing variously nondescript t-shirts and hoodies, it seems this Salford-based group is going to depend on its sound to stand out. It’s unfortunate, then, that with closed eyes the smudged stacatto vocals of ‘Who Stole New Year’s Eve’ so closely mimic Luke Pritchard, lead singer of The Kooks. The tickled symbol and two-note bass pulse that open ‘Reaper’ are promisingly different, but the lyrics begin and The Nankeens’ front man, Adam Darby, has merely morphed again. This time, he’s channelling Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill, whose Southern American nasal twist is lent an unconvinced Manchester burr. It’s never a good sign when every song a new band plays makes you think not about how they sound, but who they sound like – Darby stays possessed for much of the rest of the set. In the final song, ‘Here We Go’, his voice is stretched by a key change so that he’s singing at the frayed end of his range.

The Nankeens depart unceremoniously from the stage and do not stick around to meet their fans. As for their name, it turns out that Nankeen cotton used to be manufactured in the Eccles mill they rehearse in, so the association is geographical as much as anything. It seems that this is a band that needs to find out who they really are, before we can. 4/10

The Coronas 

2/10

The Coronas’ front man Danny O’Reilly walks onstage and a good part of the audience gets pretty bothered about the crotch. It’s not just those sky-blue Irish eyes, his dark hair and cheekbones that could chop chocolate – his smile says he knows what underwear you’re wearing, and he fucking loves it.

Setting off at a lick, their first song ‘What You Think You Know’ from the newest album Closer To You, flaunts a growling bass, pulsing drums and sexily bitter lyrics. The next, ‘Dreaming Again Part II (Wait For You)’ is titled like a line in bad poetry and could not be more different. It is the ultimate aphrodisiac – for those to whom sex is a satin heart held by a teddy.

That this seems to be true of most of the audience, who begin to sway, seduced, must be encouraging for a Dublin-based band trying to transition over here. Like the shiny-suited crooners that serenade European café tables, a fake rose plugged between their teeth, O’Reilly sings as if he’s sobbing.

He shifts to the keyboard for ‘Blind Will Lead The Blind’: the melody sounds like bubbles through water and is complimented by a clean drum line. Yet both O’Reilly and lead guitarist Dave McPhilips seem to have polished their teeth with Vaseline, they gurn so determinedly between phrases. The set swoons on, their sound outmoded, with too many words stuffed gaudily into the melodies. A four song encore showcases the most soppy line of the night: ‘if I had a rainbow / I’d put the end of it at our toes’, from ‘Addicted to Progress’. This, their last gig on the tour, ends with audience karaoke to ‘Hey Day’, as O’Reilly passes the mic along: what could be sexier than that?