Live at Whelan's, Dublin

Who was it that said that beauty is a double-edged sword? True, it could be all too easy to denounce Mainline as six pretty boys, looking for all the world like a band of spruced-up Fonzies. Luckily their sound tells a different and much more substantial story.

Mainline hail from the same exciting (and excitable) faction of the Dublin underground that also houses The Things and Humanzi, but sonically, they are a breed apart. Like the title of their single ‘Black Honey’ suggests, their sound is a dense black hole in which it’s possible to drown.

Very rarely does a new Irish band so forcefully present a sense of occasion, yet tonight’s set is urgent and sexed-up, gilded with a narcotic calm that causes white spots behind the eyes. Often compared to the prairie-dry Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the world-weary, laconic likes of Spiritualized, there are also brooding strains of Echo & The Bunnymen evident in tonight’s set…with the edge taken off on occasion by a less forbidding, Charlatans-type burr.

The Mainline set isn’t necessarily one of surprises or searing climaxes or crescendos. Instead, their sound builds slowly from a reflective, distilled sort of psychedelia to a thumping, immaculately dishevelled slice of rock wonderment.

Meanwhile, a well-scrubbed backpacker type walks through the venue’s side door, as if by accident. From the look on his face, it appears as though he has stumbled upon some sort of Holy Grail. It was certainly that sort of show.

As for America? Let’s just say they won’t know what hit ‘em.