Review: The Duke Spirit, Glasgow King Tut’s

THE Duke Spirit were briefly hyped around the middle of the last decade, coming across as just another hipster outfit who barely raised an eyebrow outside London, or so it seemed.

Seven years of steady plugging later, they can still muster enough of a crowd to preside over an atmospheric Saturday night at King Tut’s.

However, like many mid-table indie rock outfits, their desire to make a cool sound appears to outweigh their ability to write memorable hooks.

Superficially, they ticked the boxes. Front woman Liela Moss was sufficiently commanding, there were pockets of sonic interest and the five-piece maintained a pretty consistent dynamic throughout, only losing ground with one slower, more indulgent number.

But there were no arresting moments nor unusual decisions taken in the delivery of their set.

It was almost inevitable that their performance would work itself up into a semi-storm of guitar distortion or that they would bring the show to a fairly urgent climax.

As a result it felt as if the band had merely assembled the correct ingredients including prowling rhythms, reverb guitar, swampy bass and Moss’s sultry declarations of the lengths she would go to for you, the hopeful male audience member, only to string them together in an indentikit fashion without a strong, identifying flavour.

There is nothing wrong with a slow-burn of a career but, after almost ten years as a band, The Duke Spirit need to move on from merely stalking a song to making that killer pounce.

Rating: ***