Les Marionettes - for MRU.ie (music review unsigned)

Les Marionette debut EP launch - Workingman’s Club

Thursday, November 17, 2011

On the face of it, it’s a band taking a step back nearly thirty years to sit at the top table of music beside the Gary Numans, Bronski Beats, and Depeche Modes.

The clothes, lights, styles, and general impression give credence to this, but this is a band for musos. Everything they do is a nod to what has come in between now and then, and the show, the music, the energy, the rhythm, as well as the bravery to create an image, is validation enough that Les Marionettes are indeed a breath of fresh air.

To Andy Bell, there is a bit of a Frank Black influence, to Kraftwork - a britpop leveller. It’s pure electro-pop, but not necessarily as your finger-less glove and pleated jeans wearing folks would remember it.

Les Marionettes work and that is down to hard work and no end of talent. They are very far from the Blizzard-type blandness that appears to be the aim of and extent of the music ambition pervading the live scene at present.

All four band members have been on the music scene long enough to know what has to be put in to get anything out.

Keith Farrell and Ger Eaton have been everywhere from a field in Somerset to the Jools Holland’s BBC set, while Lucy Cody and Derren Dempsey have both been in bands that could almost taste the big time.

What has been created is big time music, which really works live. The EP launch at the Workman’s Club is a testament to this. The big crowd that gathered were treated to a throwback.

Neither star-gazing nor shoe-gazing, this music is suited to both. Song’s like ‘Sign your release’ and ‘Hung on you’ are intrinsically constructed, which is no mean feat considering the amount of equipment combined to create their sound.

On occasion it can feel like there is one extreme 80s effects too many for the present time - it having been cast-off along with lolo balls, fat frogs (unfortunately) and leg warmers. However on the odd occasion a double-dum snuck in, just to bring you back to those overly fluorescent days, and memories of Weird Science (check it out on IMBd) et al.

There is a big swell towards early 80s electro music, which will get stronger with the approaching Euro football championships next summer. Don’t believe me? Check out the Celtic, and now Irish, fans devotion to the classic ‘Just can’t get enough’. However I doubted Les Marionettes could produce a terrace trembler to trouble Depeche Mode - that is until Keith managed to get a little ‘Ole Ole Ole Ole’ into their last tune.