Review

Live music:Matthew and the Atlas

Matthew and the Atlas are signed to Mumford and Sons’ record label, Communion, and trade in a similarly upbeat school of folk-pop. But while the Mumfords can play to 30,000 people at Phoenix Park, Matthew Hegarty and his band remain stuck on the bottom rung, headlining pokey venues and manning their own merchandise tables (you know a band has one foot in obscurity when the lead singer is selling you a T-shirt).

They don’t seem particularly troubled by their lowly position. In front of a large bank holiday attendance, the quartet are upbeat and engaged as they perform tunes from their spry new LP, Other Rivers. Stepping from bittersweet to jaunty, the record attests to Hegarty’s growing talent as a tunesmith and, in the flesh, the material takes on an extra dimension, with a backing vocalist adding gentle harmonies as the frontman closes his eyes and croons his heart out.

Though the Mumford parallels are almost too obvious to require mentioning, Matthew and the Atlas are no cookie cutter nu-folkies. Granted, they enjoy lathing their compositions in banjo and violin and sport the regulation nu-folk uniform of outsize beard and hipster waist-coats. However, there’s a stadium sweep to their sound that evokes rockier acts — in particular Keane and Coldplay (and which, it is true, seems a tad overwrought in the Academy’s downstairs space).

[media=youtube]http://youtu.be/woxJj7ONWWY[/media

Standing a little warily at the mic, Hegarty is not a natural frontman. He comes across as rather shy, tending to mumble between songs. Far from a disadvantage, the lack of swagger is vaguely ennobling — and certainly fits with the music, which, for all its epic qualities, can be introverted too. As a lyricist Hegarty is somewhat of a moocher, forever poking through the ashes of old relationships. He is one of those writers whose music is essentially a plea to be hugged.

Listening to songs from the new album — the Elbow-esque ‘Pale Sun Rose’ especially — you wonder if the band’s might be about to change for the better. Hegarty has a gift for arena-ready anthems — all he has to do is make people sit up and take notice.

Star Rating: 4/5