Dumb & Modern Minds LIVE @ The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham 14/08/14

Rising out of the ashes of The Carpels, Dumb have become one of Birmingham’s newest talked about bands thanks to their 90s loud-mouthed rock style. For the launch of their EP Chew Me Up, Spit Me Out, they headed down to Birmingham’s Sunflower Lounge to play a packed out intimate show in celebration of the debut release.

Walsall’s neat-haired 5-piece Modern Minds took to the stage initially with softened vocals and easy-going melodies which didn’t last that long as things soon switched for a livelier guitar driven sound. Although dressed in monochrome their music was far from it with colourful, chirpy riffs likable to Two Door Cinema Club which caused one guy with moves that even Louie Spence wouldn’t have thought of to take centre stage. Covers of Foster The People’s ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ and The Stone Roses’ ‘This Is The One’ teamed up with their own tracks like the recently released ‘Escape’ forced the sometimes unfamiliar crowd to go join the lone guy up front. A borrowed guitar, stolen mic and one man stage invasion later, the band finally drew their set to a close.

There was no easing into their set for Dumb as they brandished the notorious riffs and brooding vocals with opener ‘Retina’ which picked up where Modern Minds had left off. Keeping the same in your face attitude as they hold on the record, there was no break from the full-frontal wall of energy which didn’t take long to give the go ahead to crowd surfers and pits to get going. Even the unknown tracks like ‘Lost In Time’ didn’t leave people standing still nodding along in appreciation – with the Sunflower Lounge being unforgiving with free space, soon enough people were falling into one another finding it hard to stand up straight.

When the set reached ‘Still I’m Stuck’, it was a home straight of loud, brash tracks until the very end. The 90s-esque ‘Super Sonic Love Toy’ left everyone relaying the playful “oohs” alongside the lone drums whilst trying to form a circle pit without much success before joining in back in with the prearranged chaos. Breaking up the EP’s tracks with another new one ‘When’, it was soon announced that it was the finale of ‘Two Bottles’. With the initial shouts of the opening lyrics from the crowd, Dumb then overpowered everyone their slick, self-confident melodies. Finishing the night with most people running on stage, it’s not hard to argue their EP received a proper send-off.

Check out our review of Dumb’s Chew Me Up, Spit Me Out EP here.

Becky Rogers

@beckyrogers29