Morain LIVE @ The Garage, Highbury 20.2.14

Upstairs at London’s Garage; a dreary Friday evening. Surprisingly empty for such a small venue, probably a crowd mainly made up of friends and family of the bands. Considering this is the end of a week-long tour for Morain and Alexander, you’d expect a few more people to turn up in London…

Between the somewhat passionless first band and main act of the evening come Morain. Having earlier described themselves as wanting to sound like Snow Patrol, I was initially skeptical. To put it bluntly (with, um, as little offence to Snow Patrol as possible), I feel it’s a massive insult to to describe themselves as sounding like Snow Patrol; aside from the big choruses, which they achieved flawlessly, their sound is far more enjoyable. It’s summery and uplifting; effortless sounding lead vocals and catchy riffs. Morain have that perfect sing-a-long vibe – once you know the words, anyway.

Their influences (which they claim range from Gary Barlow to Drum and Bass) are far from present in the performance. Apart from the arguably cheesy pop vocals, Morain are almost impossible to put in a genre.

It is short and sweet; about half an hour to play through their EPs, plug the new single release a little and thank Alexander for having them on tour. The crowd is happy. A few fans (or family members) are singing along at the front and there’s enthusiastic head-bobbing from everyone else – evidently enjoyable, and I’ve no doubt Morain will go on to bigger things.