Mallory Knox played the O2 ABC at the end of September in what was the opening night of their first tour in the UK this year. They had been touring with Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens in America at the start of 2015, but returned to home shores for their aptly named “Homecoming Tour”.
The show had a strong start, opening with one of their major singles from Asymmetry: “Shout At The Moon”. The track had been playlisted at Radio 1, and it was clearly one of the more immediate songs from the set.
In fact, the entire opening section of the set was very strong, with Shout At The Moon followed by Wake Up, Getaway and Lonely Hours. There was a lot of energy, an extremely slick sound, and the vocals of Mikey Chapman were absolutely on point. He showed a good range with a lot of strength that never wavered throughout the night.
The main issue to take away from the set was that most of the songs were quite similar to each other. This did mean that there were no massive disappointments, but it also meant that no single song could really break through to become a highlight, and it was very easy to zone out and not pay much attention towards the end.
Even when Chapman claimed they were about to slow things down with the song Heart & Desire, there wasn’t really a change in sound. Lyrically Mallory Knox became far more mushy, to the stage Chapman was almost apologetic after the song finished, saying they had to do it. But Adele certainly had nothing to worry about.
All that being said though, the end of the set was just as strong as the beginning. Show closer Lighthouse was always primed to be one of my personal highlights from the night, and with it being the song that likely introduced many of the people in the crowd to Mallory Knox as a former iTunes Single Of The Week, it went down fantastically.
More variety was definitely needed to make this show last long in the memory – but that is a common complaint when you are unfamiliar with the material beforehand. Technically Mallory Knox were good, and they are clearly very capable musicians with a strong fanbase. I’ll be very interested to see where they go from here, as they certainly have the potential to reach far higher levels than they currently are.
