Gig review: The Family Rain, King Tut’s, Glasgow

THIS is The Family Rain’s first headline tour and already they were on the hard stuff. Frontman William Walter was feeling fluey and pouring honey straight from the squeezy bottle into his mouth between songs.

The Family Rain

King Tut’s, Glasgow

Star rating: * * *

No hot water and lemon or anything. Phew, rock’n’roll!

Sure enough, there was a rasp to his vocals on hard-riffing boogie number Pushing It but no other obvious signs of viral ailment, unless lack of originality is a treatable condition. It doesn’t take too long to work out why these hirsute brothers from Bath playing gnarled indie rock have been touted as a West Country Kings of Leon.

They shared some of the Kings’ early thrust as they tore into their opening number and some of their later rock mediocrity as the set progressed, but The Family Rain also blatantly mine the blues punk seam of The White Stripes and sundry subsequent acts with some heavy duty drum and bass action from twins William and Timothy, while elder brother Ollie added to the melee on guitar.

Although belligerent enough at full throttle, their set ultimately suffered from a lack of light and shade. Their love of hip-hop threw up one potentially interesting funky diversion but, in the end, there were just a few too many meat-and-potatoes rockers in their 40-minute set to distinguish The Family Rain from the rest of the rabble-rousing indie pack.