Chapel Club
Village Underground, London
27/05/2010

The chilly, cavernous Village Underground in Shoreditch is the perfect setting in which to see dark, brooding five-piece Chapel Club. The area has been swamped of late with too-cool-for-school bands attempting a nineties shoegazey sound, and pale, rake-thin frontmen who look and loom like the eternally tortured late Ian Curtis.

Chapel Club are arguably the band that achieve this the most effectively. Lead singer Lewis Bowman cuts a skeletal and ghostly onstage presence –he seems more than a bit out of it tonight, but this only adds to the ambiguity as his baritone drone urges the crowd to “dream a little dream of me” on haunting dirge ‘Surfacing’. Instrumentally the boys are multi-layered and super-tight, and drummer Rich Mitchell is stupendous, but as a band they appear a bit fragmented and absorbed in their own worlds (and shoes), as Bowman stares prophetically out into the abyss.

The fact that this accomplished but sombre set fails to rouse much enthusiasm in the toe-shuffling crowd points to the factor that might well inhibit Chapel Club in terms of achieving greatness – as part of a scene where they are but one of many black clad grumblers with screechy feedback will they ever receive mass recognition? Observing the horde of tight-jeaned, red-lipsticked clones assembled tonight as they nod aimlessly along, trying to look as unenthusiastic as possible, this appears doubtful. Maybe if Chapel Club took themselves a bit less seriously they would attract a more eager type of follower, and achieve the success they truly deserve.

Laura Vevers