The Myrrors @ Shacklewell Arms, live music review: epic desert psych improves with volume

Mystics: The Myrrors live at the Shacklewell Arms last Friday 16 February. Photographs: Casey Cooper-Fiske

Everywhere you look in indie music at the moment you will find psychedelia, from the radio-friendly haze of Tame Impala, to the glam-infused twang of Temples, all the way through to the batshit craziness of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

At the Shacklewell Arms on Friday night, the melancholy sound of the violin signals the arrival of a completely different kind of psych.

Made up of four members, The Myrrors create epic sonic landscapes that give the impression they are made by a whole orchestra, rather than traditional songs.

Their set builds with the slow fusing together of each instrument, beginning with said violin, and finishing with a pulsating thump of the drums. By the time the first song is finished (a good 15 mins later!) each instrument is somewhat indistinguishable from the other.

The Myrrors are not a band that is going to send their audience vaulting over the barrier, instead they take the assembled on a journey through mystic deserts in a trance-like state.

For some this state can turn to boredom – about halfway through a set that comprised of about six songs and lasted nearly an hour, the chatter of a large section of the crowd can be heard over the faint twinkle of guitar, and phone screens begin to illuminate the room.

With vocals at a premium, the band relies on their instruments to tell their stories and lead their audience. At some points this can be breathtaking, at others it just seems flat.

As the performance reaches its climax, the band seem to have grown into it, with songs that feature much more detail and build to crescendos that do much to drown out the chatter and darken the phones.

It is clear to see, when the band is at their loudest, that they have a very interesting mix of styles and influences, desert rock meets world music, with a generous portion of folk and prog.

Whilst The Myrrors performance was certainly not the most entertaining show I’ve ever seen, the band are without doubt a talented bunch, even if they do spend the majority of their time on stage staring at their instruments (or in the case of the lead singer, at his pedal board).

All in all the band should be praised for trying something different in a genre that has enormous popularity at the moment, rather than just going with the zeitgeist.