The debut is an extraordinary and unpredictable introduction to one of the most exciting new bands in the country.

MLEKO’s headline at The Castle Hotel late last year felt like being in on a secret. The band only released their debut single the night before, by which point the show had long since sold out. Like, properly sold out. No “tonight is sold out!” followed by “very limited tickets on the door if you’re early!” nonsense. Stories of friends and family missing out weren’t short of supply.

Barely fitting onto the Northern Quarter pub’s backroom stage, the seven members barreled through a captivatingly genre-confused set which dealt equally in dissonant post-punk, manic jazz breakdowns and delicately plucked folk arrangements. Delirium and energy took over two thirds of the room whilst those at the back tried to take it all in. Whatever camp you fell in, you probably left thinking, “Fuck, it’s really annoying that I can’t listen to those songs again.”

But here they are! Debut EP ‘The Feast of St. Perpetua’ shifts and snarls with relentless ambition. It’s a collection of songs that delight in largely disregarding genre and structure. This is the sound of a band refusing to be paralysed by overthinking what they want to be and letting the uneasiness of the middle ground become the whole point. The self-imposed ‘Gub rock’ tag they have taken on frees them of any sonic lineage to honour.

Throughout the record, MLEKO toy with tension-relief dichotomies without it ever becoming stale. Often enough, they’ll wrongfoot you by leaning further into the noise and discordance rather than reigning back. Sometimes, as on penultimate cut ‘As it Goes’, they’ll sit in those quieter repetitions for a touch longer than you’ve come to expect. They prove that they have a formula by demonstrating just how many ways they can subvert it. When it all comes together, like on the closest thing the band have to a chorus in ‘Lego Sex’ or the mission statement cry of “and then it hits ya’” amid a sea of abrasive brass noise in ‘Gub Rock’, it is something to behold. Yet it is the very disguising of such climactic moments of melodic coherence which makes them so impactful.

The highlight of the EP is closer ‘Tom’s Tune’. The band have described this as the most accurate encapsulation of their sound, which is a very fair assessment. It shifts through its brass motifs from a delicate folk song that could be filed next to the softer My New Band Believe tracks or something by Dove Ellis into a desperate downpouring of noise; maniacal guitars, sax and trumpet used as weaponry. In seven minutes, it puts forward as many good ideas as most bands would hope to have across their full debut. 

‘The Feast of St. Perpetua’ firmly positions MLEKO as one of the most exciting new bands in the country.