Lorraine have been knocking around the UK music scene for roughly a year now, yet haven’t managed to make an impression; the less than crowded Barfly is testament to that fact. On paper Lorraine sound perfect, with influences coming form Depeche Mode, Prodigy and label buddies, Kasabian. It’s just unfortunate Lorraine turn out to be nothing more than a grooveless Goldfrapp.

As the Lorraine lads work damn hard to enthuse what little crowd they have to work with, it’s almost a sorry sight. Frontman Ole Gunnar Gundersen dances around the stage on tripod-like legs, sometimes pounding Anders Winsents’ guitar, sometimes pole-dancing with the absence of a pole. Whatever move he pulls is carried out with a truckload of vigour, which can also be said for the rest of Ole’s band mates.

But it’s in the tunes department that Lorraine are lacking with songs that are dependently synth heavy with a disturbingly synthetic drum beat, and all miss a decent groove. This seems bizarre, considering they cite many influences in the field of memorable pop-synth hooks and beats. The band relies on an overly repeated chorus to keep the punters’ feet tapping though thanks to Ole’s Billie Corgan-like twang the choruses easily begin to grate on the tenth repeat. Unfortunately this results in this evening’s short set achieving an unnecessary level of uniformity and soullessness, which no amount of eye catching style or dirty dancing can compensate for.

Lorraine look and act the part but fall short when delivering the goods - loads of great ideas and style, but without that extra level of character that is needed to capture the interest of today’s overloaded music consumer, their pretty faces aren’t enough to salvage their flagging presence.      
(2/5)