Hailing from legendary geriatric hangout, East Sussex’s Bexhill-on-The-Sea aka “God’s waiting room”, Mumm-Ra are quite possibly the town’s only residents to know Thundercats. Let alone reference the ‘80s telly favourite, as they did when it came to choosing a name. Mumm-Ra, take note grannies and grandpas of Bexhill in particular, was the nemesis of the show’s hero, Lion-O.

Funny then that these five young pups, Gareth Jennings on drums, bassist Niall Buckler, James ‘Noo’ New on lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards, guitarist/vocalist Oli Fro, and James Arguile on guitar, sound like they’d struggle to fight their way out a paper bag. Wimp rockers like West Sussex counterparts The Kooks, they’re also apparently after Athlete’s fanbase. Especially if first single ‘She’s Got You High’ is anything to go by, seeing as it’s a cover by another name of a track by those south London softies.

Appropriately enough, ‘She’s Got You High’ took just 10 minutes to write. Asked to describe it by NME.com in a track-by-track interview, the band plumped for “simple pop song”. A tag which they appeared to use to explain every other track.

Not that there’s anything wrong in keeping things simple. In doing so, Mumm-Ra establish an easy rapport with their fans. So much so that Mumm-Ra concertgoers are notorius for singing Noo’s words straight back at him.

They grew up watching The Bluetones live. Since then they’ve supported the likes of The Killers. From being fans to opening for established acts, the next step is for Mumm-Ra to become headliners themselves and debut album These Things Move In Three proves they’ve got the material in spades.

(4/5)