Live Report: Maribou State, All Together Now 2018

UK electro duo Chris Davids and Liam Ivory brought their unique sound to All Together Now's Something Kind of Wonderful stage.

Playing mostly instrumentals, the band's tracks slowly build and build into sonic landscapes, often picking up in pace before becoming fully fleshed out by their end. In this way, they share DNA with one of the other major festival headliners Mogwai, but with more of a dance/house edge.

Some of these long builds were interesting to see live. However, the band do not really have the big monster singles to keep audiences fully engaged.

Yesterday, Kelela had a similar problem but it didn't derail her set becomes she had great presence, dance moves and beautiful lighting. However, Davids and Ivory were positioned on stage faced away from the audience for most of the set, while their background screen simply consisted of their name.

It's telling that the biggest audience reaction came when they introduced singer Holly Walker on stage for their track with vocals 'Steal', a performer with more energy.

Although there was technical and musical skill on display, what Maribou State lacked was some soul live.

Featured Image Credit