News Midnight Lion

A lot of getting yourselves fans as a new band is down to creating a certain vibe and buzz about yourself. Whatever you think about Brother and their various recordings, you know from the interviews and their online presence that they’re proper lads, yeah, and that they don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks about them – apart from the music press, of course, whose support they are utterly dependent on in order to make a career for themselves.

Midnight Lion are a two piece who seem to have been dotting around for a little while before going silent on us. A few early recordings are still about that seem to contradict the image that they’re striving for now, the brash electro-pop-punk of their youth now substituted for withdrawn, gloriously atmospheric numbers that linger and build rather than going straight for the kill.

Indeed, one of the two tracks available of the band in their second incarnation is all about putting the groundwork in for the listener to get their expectations in order. Never really getting started and with a video comprised only of flashing lights, there’s something nothingy about it that bizarrely works. It’s their other effort – currently unnamed, by the looks of things – that manages to get the pulse racing. Artfully shot, it’s everything that their archived efforts on YouTube are not, filled with a self confidence that allows them to hold back, meandering in a way which is nothing short of hypnotising.

As with any kind of rebirth, it’s always a worry to think where this new directional push is coming from. PRs can do as much pitching and positioning of a band as possible, forcing them into new websites (like the one that’s magically appeared for Midnight Lion) but they can’t force them to create this kind of splendour themselves. If they could, it’d probably be them making the music rather than writing up press releases about it.