The Lathums by Sam Crowston
Pity all the ‘Ones To Watch For 2020′. In 2019 they would have built up a solid foundation of fans and critics, with everything in place for a sustained attack on the first year of the new decade.
Tours, festivals, new music would all have been locked in the diary, as well as all the other elements of a promotional campaign. But fears were raised early on in the lockdown that for anyone beneath the tier of Academy level (namely playing venues of 500 upwards), it was to be instead an uncertain future.
The Lathums fall into this criteria, although not by much, such is the momentum they have. This is speculation, but it’s not hard to envision the four-piece from Wigan as favourites during the festival season, and hype around their new Ghost EP would have been formidable. Not that they are doing badly; this livestream performance was watched by over 2000 people, and many more will catch it at a later date.
Filmed at Blackpool Tower’s Circus Room, like all livestreamed gigs the venue takes on extra importance, cavernous enough as a location without being distracting. Peppered by some backstage larks and the band walking around, seeing the undiluted joy of young bands fulfilling their dreams never gets old and warms the cockles.
But ultimately, we’re here for the music, and what music it is. Across a handful of EPs and singles, The Lathums now have a number of fan favourites. Virtually every track, excluding their recent charity release (a cover of the Northern Soul classic The Smoke) is played and so we see all sides of the band, from the epic melancholy of All My Life to the more ska-influenced new tracks on Ghosts.
Of those aforementioned tracks, Ghosts takes the more haunting aspects of The Coral (unsurprisingly: the band are working with James Skelly) and ups the tempo to create a contemporary 2-Tone sound. The marauding Foolish Parley and jaunty Corporation Street follow suit. The older tracks haven’t lost anything with familiarity; the vocal gymnastics and scat chorus of Fight On remain glorious, and the life-affirming I Know That Much gets better every time. The smooth sheen of The Great Escape has been bolstered to sound even more impressive ‘live’, and It Won’t Take Long swaggers with intent.
Impressively, the group have harnessed a sound that, despite many influences, can only be them, and they function under a timeless but faultless dynamic. Johnny and Ryan, on bass and drums respectively, hold everything together while Alex melodically swoons and soars on vocals. However, their secret weapon is Scott on lead guitar. It’s by now a lazy comparison, but it bears repeating: there is a not an insubstantial debt owed to The Smiths (Alex even enunciates like Morrissey) and that’s primarily found in the guitar playing. Making it look easy, like a certain J Maher used to, all Scott Concepcion needs to do is literally kiss the sky. Apart from that, he’s well down the road of Rock God, working so well in tandem with Alex’s voice so as to be a duet between voice and strings. Sublime.
This performance proves that there’s always a place for indie kids (complete with no coherent uniform: hoodies, Adidias tops and smart jackets are all on display), and this particular mob of urchins clearly aren’t going to let a global pandemic and all its consequences stand in their way.