Director’s take on the modish new-wave sound of Dublin guitar bands has been getting invariably good notices. The Malahide four-piece hit pay dirt in the summer with the chart-and-radio playlist hogging ‘Reconnect’; the album We Thrive On Big Cities is consummate and a refined debut, fizzing with sharp guitars and sharper bon mots. The frisson of anticipation inside Cork’s sold out Cyprus Avenue is therefore not a surprise.
What is a surprise is the guarded and detached nature of their performance. Frontman Michael Moloney exudes a fey geekish appeal but looks uncomfortable. His voice, as on record, is icy and austere, conveying the arch sentiments of his lyrics, but also an eerie dislocation. His taciturn demeanor – the crowd are treated to little more than a few token impersonal asides – compounds the stiflingly aloof atmosphere. The rest of the band are equally po-faced, for the entire gig looking like they have punched in for a shift in an IT department.
It’s a shame considering the wealth of material the band display. The poise and elegance of ‘Last Time’ with the interplay of the twin guitars working gloriously, is a highlight, as is the ska-tinged latest single ‘Come With A Friend’. They are a taut, considered and intelligent sounding unit. However for every moment of musical majesty, there is the same brevity of inspiration to follow, the same detachment, the same constipated cool.
This curiously anaemic style of performance is probably due to the band’s relative inexperience and their earlier decision to eschew the live circuit drudgery to focus instead on writing songs. Pencil-thin Moloney is an intriguing frontman – a cross pollination of Kings Of Convenience frontman Erlend Øye and Jarvis Cocker – but he gives so little to the audience that it renders his contribution null and void. Guitarist Eoin Aherne is an undoubted talent, but looks disinterested. Okay, so it’s not a three-ring circus I’m reviewing, and rockstar show-boating has it’s own time and place, but Jesus lads you’re not in a gulag; give the audience something! An emotion, a swagger, a nod, anything! The suffocating stand-offishness is of course tolerated and cosseted by Director’s merry band of hardcores, but the remainder of the audience – those who came to be impressed – unsurprisingly, remain indifferent.
Naturally the place goes off for the single ‘Reconnect’, as dynamic and lip-smackingly catchy an indie song you’ll hear all year. Moloney’s dry-ice tones momentarily exude some fire-in-the-belly. This and the dancey blow-out ‘Leave It To Me’, resurrect the performance; fleetingly we get to see some on stage bonhomie. In time they will learn to enjoy themselves but right now Director are letting their obvious talents be sullied by an insouciant and withdrawn live show.