Millionaire - London Metro - 11/6/02
4/5
By: Toby L
Tim Vanhamel is a man you just may recall from Mauro Pawlowski's Evil Superstars and, if not via them, then the chances are you'll get to know him in his current incarnation...
Vanhamel's new endeavour, Millionaire, however, are an uneasy act to pin down. Just going on sound-bites, if your first taste of their material happened to occur via the recent pop-romp 'Come With You' then the chances are that you'll think you know what they're like live. Well, sadly, the chances are again that your presumptions on what such an act would be like live are wrong. Hardly ones to shy themselves from the crowd, the 'Naire hold aloft their guitars on seriously cheesy angles, multi-sequence their vocals together to form an indie-version of Earth Wind & Fire and spend the rest of the time coming across like an electronic Hives - of course, had the Swedes been left in a shop full of synths and keyboards (or maracas) instead of a store with white-panelled guitars.
Thus, Millionaire are fantastic. Continually surprising, permanently accessible, they still remain heavy and facetted with the ideas that the present dance-music industry could do with at the moment. And, in between the most perplexing of pogoing and painful head-bangs from on-stage, let alone Air vocals, Primal Scream outlook on hooks and loops, not to the mention the odd Pixies guitar-screeches scattered randomly in their lengthy set, we get some dialogue. 'We're Millionaire - from Belgium!' The tightly-packed audience cheer, but that's all we get in our allowance of ad-lib. 'Insightful' isn't really the word...
Still, when as inherently catchy, pain-stakingly groovy and intriguing as this, the matter of speaking isn't too much of an issue - after all, just sitting back and listening to something as inventive as this is a far more fulfilling experience; go on, try doing it yourself: you just might discover another great talent for 2002.
Artists in this article: Millionaire
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