Cousin Marnie at the Sebright Arms

Cousin Marnie at the Sebright Arms | Live review

11^th March 2014

11 March 2014

From the very beginning the stage set up, including strange glowing plastic rabbits, sets the eerie yet sexy mood for this evening’s event.

Cousin Marnie’s set starts with the sharp, powerful Silly Pills and then we’re off, the night’s landscape and rhythm clearly dictated by the band and well received by the audience. East London’s typically tough crowd lets their hair down tonight and laps it up – the beat dictates to them from the very start, with a conductor’s authority.

They keep a consistently intense mood throughout the set, immersing us in Till Death Do Us Part, Hotter Than Hell, You’ve Been Fooling Me Baby, Cain, Venus Hunting and finishing up with Crossed Wires – ending as strong as they started, keeping the audience more or less rapt throughout.

As with many minimal and electronic acts, there was a certain emptiness that fell between each song, although this was soon filled by Cousin Marnie’s haunting yet dramatic instrumental and vocal energy. It would be good to see them develop a little more stage charisma, to maintain the captivation of the audience, even between tracks.

Musically, there’s a feeling of Trent Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels’ stark, ambient sound mixed with a more rough and raw honesty reminiscent of The Kills. The combination of rich, soulful vocals backed by cold, harsh electronics teases us with a genre that is only really just starting to be tapped, with lots more musical territory yet to be explored. Cousin Marnie are clearly off to a good start – here’s hoping they can continue to push the style in new directions. Whether we just witnessed a band on the edge of exploding remains to be seen, but we can only hope.

Adam Bennett
Photos: Adam Bennett

For further information and future events visit Cousin Marnie’s website here.