Listening to Wolves, their storming debut album, one might easily cite Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, A Silver Mount Zion or Mercury Rev, but upon hearing the gorgeously sculpted post-folk of My Latest Novel, the rock press seem to have collectively plumped for an obvious, if fairly satisfactory catch all – the Scottish Arcade Fire.
“Can’t complain about that,” guitarist and sometime vocalist, Gary Deveney tells me. “We had written the songs on the album before we heard the Arcade Fire, so we can’t say they were a direct influence, but it’s a really fantastic comparison to keep hearing.”
The band themselves are keener to stress more indigenous references.
“We’d go with Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Low,” says Gary. “But mainly, we’ve been inspired by other Scottish acts. Belle and Sebastian and The Jesus and Mary Chain would have had a big impact from the beginning.”
MLN, consisting of Gary, his brother Chris Deveney (guitar, bass, vocals), Paul McGeachy (vocals, guitar, xylophone), Laura McFarlane (vocals, violin, piano) and Ryan King (drums, percussion) hail from Greenock, a somnambulist Scottish coastal town, and sure enough, several tracks on Wolves (notably ‘When We Were Wolves’ and ‘The Reputation Of Ross Francis’) aspire to the condition of sea-shanty. Well, sea-shanty made over by Talking Heads.
“It’s a small industrial town,” explains Gary. “It’s a fairly dour area once famed for shipbuilding. We did move to Glasgow once, but we all ran out of money at the same time and went home. But we like it there. It’s inspired us. We wrote ‘Ross Francis’ about a local – just a real character. We’d say every town has one. And living in Greenock means you practise and practise. There’s not much else to do.”
You can’t argue with results. Marrying lush indie soundscaping to foot-stamping, harmonised folk, MLN’s darksome, enthralling ballads have rightly created an impressive clatter in the industry. After only a handful of shows in neighbouring Gourock, the five-piece, all in their 20s, found themselves being courted by an army of record company A&R persons, before settling on Bella Union, the independent label run by former Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde.
“It was a really easy decision to make,” recalls Gary. “Everybody else was using industry speak or thought of us as a little indie unit shifter. Simon was the only person who had passion for the music. He liked that we messed around.”
That messing around informs the sense of musical abandon on Wolves. In studio and at gigs, band members swap instruments or hit you with a melodica when you least expect it.
“Yeah, we like that,” says Gary. “When you listen to Low – to what they can do with voices – it shows you the value of trying out sounds together. We have a box of instruments we delve into and we’ll take turns and change over. It keeps us on our toes.”
Having toured Europe, and played support to both Low and The Pixies, it looks as though MLN won’t be needing the pub venues of Gourock for much longer.
“It’s been amazing. Obviously, we listen to Low a lot, so it was incredible to play with them. And, even if it isn’t immediately apparent, The Pixies were a major influence. The Pixies and Nirvana are the bands that make you want to be in a band.”
While MLN have been overwhelmed by the rapturous critical response to their debut album, they’ve been equally taken aback by the folk references.
“Aye, that’s true,” says Gary. “We had no idea there was anything folky about us. It’s not music we listen to. The closest we’d get would be Bob Dylan. But we kept reading about folk in the reviews so we went and dug some up and decided ‘Oh right, that is just like us’.”