Sam Fender: Seventeen Going Under review – arena-worthy classics to feed the soul
24
Feb

Whilst Fender’s expansive, often breathtaking sophomore record may not be flawless, it has more than its fair share of genius songwriting and lyricism thanks to a potent concoction of sepia nostalgia and brave sociopolitical lessons for the here and now.

I’ve long thought I knew who Sam Fender was. The caricature seemed fairly straightforward: Geordie and proudly working class lad turned hometown hero with a razor-sharp jawline and creamy yet delicate singing voice; probably the adoration of teenage girls and admiring lads who will think any song with a lot of distorted guitars is cool. Sure, I could appreciate Hypersonic Missiles, the driving title track from Fender’s commercially successful debut album, but beyond that I spent years not paying him much attention.

Then I heard Seventeen Going Under, the lead single ahead of Fender’s big coming-of-age sophomore release in 2021. I was alone in a car driving a long distance to the Lake District for a night and, despite the song’s simplicity, something about it had me enthralled. The characteristics I had expected were all there; the song and Fender in general are inseparable from the North East town of North Shields where “luck came and went” as Fender puts it in the form of once prosperous coal mines. Yet almost instantly, I came to the very belated realisation that this guy is the real deal. Over the jangly Springsteen-esque guitars, Fender’s faultless lyrics demand full attention. They illustrate adolescence in the town with visceral depth, from the “fist fights on the beach” to the mental health issues bottled up by the need to be the “joker” amongst “boys’ boys and locker-room talking lads’ lads”. The descriptions are painful yet sound vaguely nostalgic, portraying a childhood that was as precious as it was scarring. An awesome rush of noise gradually accumulates in support of Fender as his emotion builds to boiling point: a pounding, war-like drum groove, a sparkling glockenspiel and a screaming saxophone (an inspired instrumental choice) all contribute to the growing din. It’s sonically overwhelming, the song dripping with feeling and heartache in every note. To call it one of the finest songs to reach British mainstream rock this year is an understatement. It goes without saying, Seventeen Going Under was to soundtrack my subsequent hike in the mountains with an apt feel of September melancholy.

Both the memories of growing up in Tyneside and Fender’s generational anger at being left behind by his government run right the way through Seventeen Going Under. Getting Started decries the “council rigmarole” imposed on Fender’s poverty stricken mother, which is powerfully juxtaposed with Fender’s own urge to go out and do the things that 18-year-olds are supposed to do. The fact that Fender faced a decision between helping his mother or himself (“What I wouldn’t do to get you out this hole / For tonight I gotta let her go”) is an impactful political statement in itself. If the album needed a flagship political anthem, however, seething Aye is the song. Whilst it occasionally gets into the habit of look-at-this-very-bad-thing-isn’t-it-awful, there is also a good deal of provocative and interesting social commentary to be enjoyed. Written in the wake of the Conservative party’s shocking byelection win in Blyth Valley, Fender notes how the working class is being pulled apart by political polarisation (“poor hate the poor”) and how each side blames the other for society’s failings whilst in his view it’s really just the richest that are pulling the strings. Fender may be proudly left-wing, but the line “the woke kids are just dickheads” has proved contentious in the days and weeks since the single’s release. As far as I’m concerned, Fender’s bravery in the face of cancel culture should be applauded.

Elsewhere, toxic masculinity is a fruitful and powerful lyrical theme. Spit of You heart-wrenchingly covers Fender’s inability to talk to his father about the death of his grandmother over a tasteful and disarmingly light electric guitar backing. It lacks the fire power of something like the title track, but the hook is undeniably very strong. Get You Down is a much more compelling reflection on the anger and fear of emasculation that filled his early twenties. Its soaring melodies and relentless snare drum builds deserve to be blasted out from a lad’s first battered Vauxhall Corsa as he navigates the challenges of manhood alone, as the archetype of the perfect manly man demands. The strings are glorious and lush and Johnny Davis’ raspy saxophone makes another chill-inducing appearance, lifting the song from good to unforgettable. For all it’s self-loathing, Get You Down sounds remarkably cathartic, and makes for a perfect centrepiece to Seventeen Going Under.

The Leveller lands with similar urgency, and once again soaring strings are used compellingly. “Mark my words / This is a leveller”, Fender sings of the pandemic whilst painting his surging depression as a sort of unstoppable beast of its own. Stunning lines like “Scribed on the walls in the back lane by my flat / Teenage premonitions of Armageddon” or “Waiting in vain for the mighty crash / As little England tears itself to pieces” sound deeply unsettling over the ear-piercing punk guitars and menacing, shifting power chords. Later, Paradigms takes flight with a bright piano and expansive sound that evokes Coldplay in their world-dominating prime. I’m sure the fact that the sonic euphoria is set to words about marketing-induced bulimia and the UK’s shocking male suicide rates won’t stop thousands of young people belting this at full volume, sat on the shoulders of friends during next year’s festival season. In fact, it will make them sing louder, and rightly so.

I’d love to say Seventeen Going Under is perfect, but I’m afraid it’s not. Mantra is fatally lacking any hook whatsoever, a fact that not even a remarkable and completely unexpected trumpet solo can make up for. Getting Started and the lethargic Last To Make It Home also lack the songwriting oomph found in the album’s purple patches.

When it comes to the showstopper closer, The Dying Light, I hardly know where to begin. It’s another painful yet important song about Fender’s very personal depression and reckoning with suicidal thoughts, but the resolve and determination in lines like “I’m damned if I give up tonight / I must repel the dying light” speak of the universal urge to persist through extreme hardship even when death seems like such an easy escape. The reason to live, Fender decides, is not for his own gain, but for the sake of his family and friends and, as he belts on the album’s devastating final lyrics, “for all the ones who didn’t make the night”. Musically, the build is truly awe-inspiring, with grand strings and brass and percussion giving company to a once-solitary yet beautiful piano accompaniment. The final few minutes bounce with that innately human triumph of survival – another day of life to enjoy, another long list of challenges overcame and many more to come. As far as I’m concerned, this is as life-affirming as music gets.

In the end, despite all the gloomy depictions of an austere childhood and grim proclamations on the state of British politics, Seventeen Going Under is one gripping reminder that life is indeed worth living, no matter what. To try to make a caricature of the man behind this magnum opus is to miss the point entirely.

The Top 5 COLORS Sessions Of All Time
20
Feb

There’s beauty in the simplicity of COLORSxSTUDIOS audiovisual experiences, presenting an artist and their music with no strings attached. Alex Walden is here to explain more and guide you through the very best that the studio has to offer.

With projects such as Kanye West’s Donda and Drake’s Certified lover Boy making headlines everywhere. It’s easy to think that today’s music industry is dominated by this new wave of trap music. However, fear not reader, as music platform COLORSxSTUDIOS is here to restore your faith.

COLORSxSTUDIOS is an aesthetic-based music platform which showcases artists who are on the rise from all over the world, ranging from America to the UK, to Spain to Cameroon, and many more. COLORS forces viewers to focus on the artist by providing them with three simple ingredients. A background, a microphone, and headphones. The use of minimalist design leaves the viewer no choice but to simply focus on the artist and nothing else. It almost creates a form of escapism where for those three or so minutes you can forget about everything going on in the world; in that moment it’s just you and the artist. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Allow me to give you my personal top five COLORSxSTUDIOS performances that are bound to move you.

5 . Slowthai – Ladies

4.JID – Workin Out

Next, we take a trip to the States where Atlanta’s own JID gives us his performance of one of his most popular singles to date, Workin Out from his album DiCaprio 2. Armed with incredible flow and skilled lyricism (accompanied by an absolutely killer sample from Helen Miller’s Don’t Explain) JID discusses how despite attaining substantial wealth and success, his life isn’t “all that” and, as a matter of fact, it’s something far from what the kids today should aspire to have. Upon analysing the lyrics, we begin to unearth how vulnerable JID really was throughout points in his life. From leaving his mother to make a living, being around fake friends, to feeling completely numb inside as if he’s used to the mental toll his lifestyle has on him by this point. JID really shows us that this popular rapper lifestyle that the media portrays to us nowadays isn’t really all it seems and that in reality, he’s just a regular person, with regular people problems. JID’s soft voice is accompanied by a soft violet background to give a truly relaxing and comfortable vibe for his performance.

3.ENNY, ft. Jorja Smith – Peng Black Girls

Taking it back to the UK for number 3, East London artist ENNY, accompanied by legendary new age R&B singer Jorja Smith, tells us what it’s really like to be a black woman in the UK. Touching from topics such as body insecurities, under representation in today’s media and even topics as specific as the struggle of hairbands bursting due to your hair being so thick, ENNY and Jorja Smith take us through the thoughts of a black woman in the UK. ENNY effortlessly murders her verses to which Jorja Smith’s responds equally with a voice that sounds as if it’s almost holding back to give us a nice soft delivery to show us the true definition of “killing it”. I urge you to read the comments of the video as well as watching the video as you can see how big of a positive impact this performance really had on the Black British community.

2.EARTHGANG – UP

For number 2 we go back to Atlanta for probably the most energetic COLORSxSTUDIOS performance out there to date. Atlanta duo EARTHGANG give us a borderline surreal performance of their track UP, the second song from their 2019 album MIRRORLAND. To call this performance thrilling would an understatement. There are so many elements that make this it so good. From the way that Johnny Venus is able to push his vocal abilities to the edge yet make it work so well when accompanied by his erratic movements, it feels like you’re watching a performance from villain in an old Disney movie. And when you think it can’t get any more intense Doctur Dot adds a layer to the chorus melody to which Johnny Venus responds by somehow kicking it up another notch, then the bassline kicks in and it all comes together. It almost feels like a well strategized attack on your ears. This is quickly followed by a verse by Doctur Dot that you will definitely have to listen to a couple times to catch all the lyrics (I know I did). It’s rare that we get such an energetic performance on COLORSxSTUDIOS, however, clearly these guys came, saw, and conquered with this absolute banger of a show.

1.Jorja Smith – Blue Lights

To pick a number one performance was a difficult decision, however, after some careful consideration (and countless alterations of my list) I realised that picking a number 1 performance was, surprisingly, quite easy. I just had to boil it down to the basics of what separates the music that we love from the music that we just casually listen to. Those songs speak to us, make us feel some extreme emotion that makes us realise how beautiful music can actually be. Therefore, you’ll understand why I had no choice but to choose Jorja Smith’s Blue Lights.

Touching on topics such as knife crime and using headphones in an attempt escape the troubles of the growing up in the modern world, Jorja explores the feeling of having a guilty conscience due to growing up around an area filled with knife crime, which is still a growing issue in the UK. With subtle changes in lyrics throughout the song such as “There’s no need to run, if you’ve done nothing wrong, blue lights should just pass you by” to “When you hear the sirens coming, the blue lights are coming for you”. As a person of colour myself, I can say that I was moved to the point where I was on the verge of tears after hearing such a delicate topic ,which can be difficult to discuss, performed so well by such an amazing voice. There’s a reason as to why this is the second time I’ve mentioned Jorja Smith in this article, her voice simply speaks for itself. Her choice of soothing melodies fit so well with her soft voice until there’s a sudden clash where she absolutely belts it out with all her heart, yet it still sounds very controlled, it has such a genuine feel to it, as if she’s singing directly to you, as if she knows you need to hear this song.

So, there you have it, my top 5 COLORSxSTUDIOS performances. With performances ranging from the soft vulnerability from JID to the hard-hitting hyper tracks from EARTHGANG, I hope that there’s a performance that you’ll find as remarkable as I did. If I’m honest, I could’ve easily written about hundreds of COLORS performances due to the abundance of videos COLORSxSTUDIOS have, so regardless of if any of these particular recommendations interest you, make sure you check out COLORS. They upload frequently and cover multiple genres, so you’ll never run out of videos to enjoy.

Jade Bird: Different Kinds of Light review – a sparkling delight
16
Feb

English singer-songwriter Jade Bird’s sophomore album builds on the best parts of the debut with new maturity, sincerity and most importantly some cracking singles. The result is an album I felt an instant personal connection to.

There’s nothing quite like listening to an album in bed. For me it’s by far the most immersive way to enjoy it – an otherwise completely silent environment with no distracting visual stimuli, just a voice and instruments and a musical story to try and dissect. I find myself happy to lie motionless as the late hours pass and soak in someone else’s creative labour of love, moving only to check my phone and make a futile attempt to memorise the name of that standout song before an early sleep wipes it from memory. For me, late-night album listening is usually saved for special occasions, in particular for those times I find myself far from home and therefore prepared for a long, dark wait before sleep finally finds me. Of course, no night is as sleepless as a night spent wild camping, and so on each of my more recent camps I’ve chosen the company of a handful of outstanding atmospheric albums. Turn Out the Lights was an apt choice as I overlooked distant bright lights whilst bivvying in the Yorkshire Dales last year, whilst Lianne La Havas’ self-titled album (and more specifically her cover of Weird Fishes) was on loop when I had another overnight visit to the Dales this summer. Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher joined me in north Wales whilst Cage The Elephant’s Melophobia was a psychedelic sleep soundtrack in the Lake District. Each time, I finish the album with a deeper personal connection to it, having experienced it at its fullest and purest.

I wasn’t in a tent when I first heard Different Kinds of Light, but was nonetheless once again sleeping alongside my best friend, sharing a ¾ double bed in a cramped Edinburgh uni student flat that felt like luxury compared to my poky two-man tent. It took only a few seconds of belting opener Open Up the Heavens for me to be fully engaged in the loud and bold new world of Different Kinds of Light. The opening bass riff is electrifying, helped along by a relentless tambourine and Bird’s impassioned vocals describing stormy betrayal. She really opens up in an expansive chorus, raising her voice almost to breaking point with the memorable refrain “it’s raining on a sunny day”. As an album opener to get me pumped up for what’s to come, it’s near flawless.

There’s plenty more vocal and instrumental grit to enjoy throughout Different Kinds of Light. Honeymoon moves with an Eleanor Rigby-esque chug, while Candidate serves up the nastiest chorus of the album, with Bird offering powerful self defense of her friends over screeching rock guitars, instead offering up herself: “If you want somebody to judge, if you want somebody to blame, if you want somebody to hate, I’m a great candidate”. It’s more disjointed and musically complex than Bird’s loveable but straightforward earlier tracks like Uh Huh and Love Has All Been Done Before, and offers a momentary insight into an art-rock side of Bird that sadly isn’t much explored elsewhere on Different Kinds of Light.

The real test of a country-rock album like this is if the quieter, less showy moments stick. In this regard, Bird does a pretty good job, with songs like Red White and Blue offering a much-needed tender side to Bird’s sound, as well as strong examples of good old-fashioned acoustic guitar songwriting. Sweet and delicate closer Prototype is a hidden gem of a love song, with Bird’s upfront and endearing lyricism (“I love you and I think I always will”) sitting nicely beside a joyful harmonica and touching harmonised vocals from boyfriend Luke. It’s a romantic campfire-ready package that sits just on the right side of cheesy. Houdini, however, is less successful, and a promising verse is let down by a rather weak and forgettable chorus, as well as a structure that gives the song little room to develop.

Where Different Kinds of Light excels most, inevitably, is where Bird finds the sonic balance between Prototype’s sweetness and Candidate’s bitterness. That moment comes around about halfway through with the stunning Now is the Time, which turns out to be one of the finest moments of Bird’s still-blossoming career. A gloriously bright acoustic guitar gives the song the vague feel of a modern Here Comes the Sun, complete with delightful lyrics about the love of life. “Never ever seen a better day to get up, doesn’t matter ‘bout the weather now’s the time to go and get it,” Bird blurts out in one excited breath at the end of each chorus before giving way to a country-informed guitar solo. Bubbling congas and some typically adventurous bass lines seem to fill the track with a sincerity and warmth that matches well with Different Kinds of Light’s bright orange album art. With all its soaring melodies and sense of youthful freedom, Now is the Time is a three-minute musical smile, and a timely reminder that every day is a gift during what has been a special summer for me.

Listening to thumping bonus track Headstart in the small hours in the middle of a new city, I’m reminded of why music means so much to me. Different Kinds of Light ends up feeling less like an escape from a long and unsuccessful night’s sleep and more a way of intensifying and enriching life’s emotions, be it through the raw anger of Candidate, the pure love of Prototype or the all-encompassing optimism of Now is the Time. It’s not a perfect album, but at its scintillating best Different Kinds of Light never fails to improve my spirits, no matter where in the world I happen to be.

Orla Gartland live at Leeds University Stylus – great songs worthy of bigger occasions
31
Jan

Despite being in desperate need of an extra bandmate or two, Orla Gartland had plenty of strong enough material to give the crowd exactly what they wanted in Leeds. Unlike her friend and peer dodie, however, her live act still has plenty of room to grow in the years to come.

Idouble- and triple-checked that my ticket proudly branded with the words ‘Orla Gartland’ in stretched all caps (a valuable souvenir to keep for years) was safely stowed in my wallet as I walked across the unsettlingly gloomy campus of Leeds University alone at twilight. It had been a difficult drive in and locating the venue wasn’t any easier. I walked into the modern, sterile white of the student union building with some trepidation, half hoping to bump into some old school mates that must have been no further than a mile or two away. Down a flight of steps and round a corner and at last I found the Orla fans slowly meandering around the cafeteria amongst students hunched over chess boards, iMacs and fast food. Only now did the dejà vu I had expected kicked in; I’d partied with this bunch of stylish, brightly-coloured teenagers not so long ago. As a close friend of dodie, Gartland shares much of the same fanbase with the uke-pop superstar, even if her sound has a decidedly more rock ‘n’ roll edge than anything dodie’s ever released. I recognised a handful of familiar faces from dodie’s showstopping Manchester gig, and overheard phrases like “At The Dodie Gig she didn’t start until 9:30!” or “I hope there’s some choreo like The Dodie Gig!” I wore my dodie mask again with the pride of a passionate football supporter, albeit not quite at the right match.

For all their similarities, it must be said that dodie is simply the more famous and more beloved of the two friends. If O2 Apollo was a Championship-level venue for dodie, Gartland’s Stylus had more of a League Two feel, and this time I had no issues in getting close enough to the stage to properly take in all the action. The venue size inevitably meant there was none of the fancy confetti or versatile lighting that made the dodie gig feel so once-in-a-lifetime – this was a straightforward gig where musicians play their music and nothing more. Gartland’s time on the big stages of Britain is most certainly still to come.

The obvious comparisons to dodie can only be taken so far. After a humdrum choice of opener Pretending, Things That I’ve Learned and oh GOD made a nice pairing with their unmistakably-Orla and risky odd time grooves that got the crowd shrugging along, even though dance moves are difficult to coordinate in 5/4. Sara Leigh Shaw was the right drummer for the job, clattering into the chorus on oh GOD with a laser focus. Tucked away slightly on the side of the stage, she looked uncannily similar to Gartland herself with her own mop of ginger hair that bobbed about in time to the stumbling groove behind that “I don’t wanna think about it” earworm. Gartland meanwhile looked ready to take on the world with her chequered green suit and matching neon green eyeshadow, commanding the crowd atop an inch or two of chunky Doc Martens. Rounding out the band was Pete Daynes. One of the standout performers of the dodie tour, his return was well received, with his enthusiastic jaunts wielding his P-bass around the stage earning him chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!” on two separate occasions.

The problem was a lack of personnel. Often Gartland’s ambitious pop-rock creations demanded more than the three albeit competent musicians could provide. (Intriguingly, support acts Greta Isaac and Clean Cut Kid could have really done with at least two more performers each – probably another manifestation of the supply chain crisis or something.) Poor Pete often had to oblige with synth parts, backing vocals and a drum machine, and a cool yet unnecessary glowing drumstick wasn’t enough to distract from the fact that this man was born to leap around with his bass like the Easter Bunny. Restricting him to the keyboard rack on the gritty, earthy bomb of a pop song Bloodline for example was nothing short of criminal.

Gartland was an engaging and loveable frontwoman, delivering sure-fire crowd pleasers from the recent album like You’re Not Special, Babe and Over Your Head with guts and charisma. Indie rock gem Codependency sounded somehow even better than the studio version, with Shaw digging in on the sections of the chorus where all momentum was previously lost. It’s a testament to Gartland’s skills as a performer that the quieter moments of the set were just as powerful as the aforementioned rock singalongs. Madison was a joy – a perfectly written acoustic ode to Gartland’s therapist with an expertly crafted melody at its heart. Gartland took to the piano for the touching Left Behind, an achingly vulnerable piece that left the crowd desperate to give Gartland one big hug before she embarked on her last few numbers.

Sara Leigh Shaw leaped atop Pete Daynes to celebrate another successful night on tour with Orla Gartland

I Go Crazy soon picked things up, taking the role of Gartland’s almost-funk jam (see dodie’s In the Middle) and properly turning the pit into a dancefloor for the first time in the night. Daynes was sure to make the most of a bubbly bassline, whipping up the crowd whenever he could. Gartland ramped up the usual crowd participation routine as the set drew to a close. Difficult Things was a good opportunity for a two-part audience call and response section, and there was something vaguely profound and moving about a few hundred concert-goers repeatedly chanting “we never talk about difficult things” in unison. In contrast, synthpop foot-tapper Flatline was a chance for the obligatory “crouch for the bridge and jump up for chorus” schtick which, despite being somewhat painful in the knees after hours of standing in one spot, was impossible not to smile at. I didn’t even know the song, but something about bouncing around in sync with these young and happy strangers was life-affirming.

The encore was mostly reserved for fan favourites More Like You and Zombie!, although as far as I was concerned the gig had already reached its pinnacle. I may not have returned to my car with the giddy buzz that the best gigs give me, but it’s nonetheless hard to fault Gartland, who put in a good shift despite requiring some added support in the form of personnel and some more engaging staging and lighting. With that, I can safely stash away my dodie mask for a long while — or at least until Pete Daynes starts doing his own headline tours.

Parcels: Day/Night review – a risky, rewarding retro pop quest
27
Jan

Parcels’ unfailingly ambitious and original double album may often be just as irresistibly funky as their debut, but it’s also a huge step forward for the band with its daring genre experimentation and philosophical lyricism. It’s a shame that with such grand aims, there were bound to be a few misfires amongst the extensive tracklist.

“It’s a bit like a good bath,” my dad told me of the latest release from Aussie-German funk-pop band Parcels a few days after my second failed attempt to put together a satisfactory opening paragraph for this post. “You have to wallow in it,” he assured me. “You can’t rush it.”

Even though my three week delay in reviewing the album is more due to my limited free time than the nature of the music itself, he has a point. Unlike their groovy (if a little repetitive) debut album, Day/Night demands full attention throughout its meaty 23-song, 100-minute runtime. In fact, it’s not just one album but two sister albums with their own recognisable sets of openers and closers and intriguing parallel themes of lightness and darkness. To listen to it in full is to immerse yourself in a world (or rather, two worlds) of shifting pop chord progressions, sticky bass lines and many, many hooks.

Over the last two years Day/Night has been a labour of love for the endearing five best friends, who recorded both albums during a residency at Le Cigale studios in Paris. The intensity of such close contact is clear not only in the rock solid musicianship on display but the sweetly harmonised group vocals, which are as pristine and finely tuned as ever in five-part falsetto glory to an almost miraculous level of perfection. The obvious strong friendships within the band have also helped powered Parcels’ formidable reputation as a live band. It’s true that whilst moments of Day/Night are spectacular, to see Parcels live is to see them at their scintillating, world-beating best.

Free is complete with multiple piano glissandos, luscious strings and one of the most engaging cowbell performances you’ll hear all year

As I’ve come to expect from the band, the general approach from the self-titled debut largely remained for Day/Night: find a good groove and use it for all it’s worth. Where five minute takes of the same looping four-chord sequence would (and should) be shunned by critics of any chart-topping pop artist, the simple quality of their loops are what makes Parcels the exception to the rule. Nowhere is this more true than on Free, a stunning, sunshine-fueled introduction to Day. As foreshadowed by last year’s fantastic live album, 2021 is the year of the acoustic piano as far as Parcels fans are concerned, and Free serves as a grand inaugural outing for a plucky little upright which is treated to one of Patrick Hetherington’s best riffs to date. The song builds and builds, with Toto Serret excruiciatingly holding back on the all important snare backbeat before another magical build from almost nothing, complete with multiple piano glissandos, luscious strings and one of the most engaging cowbell performances you’ll hear all year. Expect to see this one rank very highly indeed when I come to look back at Undertone‘s best songs of 2021 next month.

Day proves to be the more single-heavy – and in my opinion, slightly better – of the two albums. The piano makes a prominent return for the irrestibile cascading groove on Comingback, a song about rediscovering yourself in the wake of the pandemic. Lyrically, its Parcels at their most touchingly sincere. “If anyone gives a damn, I want you to know I’m here / You’re never alone,” Noah Hill sings, apparently in acknowledgement that even though the virus may be on its way out, its personal impact remains universal yet strangely alienating. Like many tracks on Day/Night, it only really makes sense when you see a crowd of revellers singing and dancing along to the chorus.

It would be wrong to reduce Day/Night to Happy/Sad. The distinction between albums is something deeper than that, and there’s plenty of emotional contrast to be found on both sides of the record. On Day, for example, the remarkably minimalist and mellow Theworstthing brings us back down to earth after Comingback. In an album packed with flashy production and even a dozen strings players, there’s beauty in the simplicity of a melody, a bassline and a backbeat. Other instruments only arrive when the time is right. Jules Crommelin’s pained and superbly controlled guitar solo is an equisite face-scruncher, while Louie Swain’s simple but effective keys riff does well to wrap things up.

If the ultra-slick Bee Gees disco of Famous doesn’t compel you to jump up from your seat and bust out a few moves like it’s 1977, there’s frankly something wrong with you.

Theworstthing‘s antithesis can be found in the maximalist extravagance of Famous. Positioned firmly within the supposedly moody and depressing world of Night, the no-nonsense intro is easily Night‘s most thrilling sonic surprise. Much more than a mere foot-tapper, if the ultra-slick Bee Gees disco of Famous doesn’t compel you to jump up from your seat and bust out a few moves like it’s 1977, there’s frankly something wrong with you. Serret’s thump, Crommelin’s precise rhythm guitar and Hill’s pounding bass octaves all combine to produce a glorious few minutes of dancefloor hedonism that wouldn’t sound out of place alongside the retro classics of the genre; the titular hook seems as inevitable and irresitible as a certain Tragedy. An abrupt groove change to a slower, even funkier 16 bars is welcome, but a second sharp left-turn in the direction of smoky late night jazz seems a little unnecessarily jarring.

Day/Night mostly succeeds in avoiding the habit of producing an anthology of singles, which the debut album somewhat fell pray to. Opener LIGHT rewards patience with a masterclass in musical world-building. Over six minutes, the band (and their highly-important group of strings players) aimed to recreate the rising sun in music, and as far as I’m concerned, they couldn’t have done a better job. LIGHT develops like a modern day answer to Grieg’s Morning Mood, unfolding gradually at first before the arrival of a stunning wall of vocals which feel just as awe-inspiring as the sight of a giant orange globe appearing on the far horizon. It’s a stylistic high that few of the more conceptual tracks like in Day/Night ever quite live up to, with corresponding sunset track SHADOW sounding inevitably half-baked in comparison. At other times, the mellower tracks can come and go almost completely unnoticed. Reflex and the virtually interminable Nightwalk provide some interesting and creative soundscapes at the heart of Night, but lack the emotional contrast and excitement of some earlier numbers. That’s not to say that the understandable sleepiness throughout Night is an inherent weakness. On the contrary, the quiet and brooding Thefear presents Parcels at their most sinister, with eerie strings and a dirty bass guitar seemingly ready to score the next series of Black Mirror. The reversed vocals towards the end do end up sounding a little silly, but atmosphere is quietly restored by a genuinely alarming strings crescendo, growing like a monster until it overpowers the rest of the band completely.

It’s all very pretty, but there’s a niggling sense that the band ought to have gone one step further.

After Thefear‘s drama, there’s a somewhat underwhelming end to the two albums. Once is a slightly bizarre turn towards melancholic country music, but all potential built up during verse one is lost as the melody meanders and wanders, failing to find a compelling chorus along the way. Closer Inside sounds fatally unlike a closer. Instead, it’s a lightly funky yet uninspiring loop that does little to tie up the loose threads of the album. Interestingly, Day closer Outside is a much more impactful ballad about how Crommelin felt abandoned by his wayward father. “Where did you go?”, he heartbreakingly belts at one point, in close two-part harmony that cuts like a knife. It’s a while before the song reaches its climax, and when we get there there’s a niggling sense that the band ought to have gone one step further. It’s all undeniably very pretty, but I’m certain they could have made it all sound a bit bigger and bolder in the end, with more harmonic progression than three tried-and-true pop chords.

Whilst Outside may suffer from homogeny, daring groove changes can be found all other the two albums, to mixed results. The switch to pitch-black jazz funk on Daywalk – especially after such an overtly cheery intro – is inspired, and the playful improvised interplay between rhodes and guitar is a joy to behold. It’s also a great opportunity for Hill to unleash his full potential in the low end of the mix, his basslines growing ever busier and more spectacular as the song builds to a finale. In contrast, the incessant groove changes on LordHenry (apparently a somewhat lazy reproduction of “luxury is a curse” adage popularised by The Picture of Dorian Gray) result in a uniquely messy and shambolic track. Little to no effort is made to somehow make a boring verse and overbearing chorus make sense next to one another, given that they both sound like completely different songs. Switching back and forth between the two is simply jarring and uncomfortable, and any philosophical messages embedded in the chorus are lost in all the musical clutter that surrounds it.

Listened to in its entirety, Day/Night reveals a band willing and able to shrug off the popular assumptions that they are nothing more than specialists in happy and superficial little electropop songs. Whilst there’s plenty of happiness to be found on Day/Night (particularly during its near flawless first 30 minutes), the two albums also offer plenty of depth and introspection, and the great risk of producing not one but two concept albums has – on the most part – paid off. It’s a staggering achievement, with enough complexity and ambition to make you worry how on earth the band plan on building from it on their next release. For now, however, the Crommelin, Hetherington, Hill, Swain and Serret have more than earnt their ensuing world tour, which is already garnering glowing reviews, to the surprise of absolutely no one. It seems like a long wait before I’ll be able to catch them on a visit to Manchester a year from now. It’s just as well that, as my dad would say, Day/Night is an album worth spending plenty of time with.

Nubya Garcia live at Gorilla review – a gripping jazz odyssey
22
Jan

On her first UK tour since the release of her critically-acclaimed debut album, Nubya Garcia’s complex jazz creations were finally given time and space to be explored in their full glory, aided by a stunning trio of supporting musicians that might have even outshined Garcia herself.

It’s been a while coming, but as my friend Emma and I rocked up at Gorilla on a non-descript weekday night in Manchester, my concert-going muscle memory started to kick in. For obvious reasons, my gigging habit had previously stopped almost as soon as it began. I started by catching Parcels at Brudenell Social Club in 2018 (I was luckier than I realised; 3 years later and they’re one of my favourite bands of all), and managed to fit in American rock duo of mom jeans. and Prince Daddy & the Hyena before the world ended. Now with another half-dozen under my belt – including a scream-along special with Declan McKenna in Newcastle and an incredible, enthralling night with dodie in Manchester – I’m starting to feel like a bit of an old pro. At Gorilla it didn’t take long for me to suss out the bar and the messy hubub of thirsty people that it attracted in an undefined queue, and the staff were relatively efficient in supplying my usual pint of Coke and some disposable earplugs (much unlike my nightmarish experience at nearby Victoria Warehouse a few months ago). Then was the uncomfortable task of finding a satisfactory spot to stand in the crowd. For this, Emma proved to be an expert, and effortlessly weaved her way through the bodies, miraculously reaching a spacious spot an arm’s reach from the stage edge. There’s nothing quite like getting a spot so close to the stage you can practically worship the feet of the musician in front of you, especially when the musician in question is enigmatic jazz keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones.

As a keyboardist myself, Joe inevitably got much of my attention for the night, but a more obvious performer to venerate was the woman on the ticket: Nubya Garcia, one of the headline artists amongst the much talked-about vanguard of contemporary British jazz. With a Medusa-like splay of dreadlocks and a wide stance, she was an admirably powerful figure on centre stage, wielding a tenor saxophone – alto’s musclier, more serious big brother. Ever since her debut EP Nubya’s 5ive was released in 2017, it seems like the general excitement around her ability to inspire a generation of new, young jazz fans has only grown and grown. Even the supporting players in that EP – Moses Boyd and Femi Coleoso on drums, Theon Cross on tuba – have also become major players in the new genre, bringing their own extensive range of bands and solo projects. Start researching and it’s easy to get lost in the proliferation of new, British (but, let’s be honest, mostly London) jazz, and as a young jazz player myself, it’s thrilling to watch. On walking into Gorilla, however, we were reminded that for all the growing momentum of UK jazz, it’s still far from the mainstream. Gorilla can only handle up to 700 jazzheads and the flickering LEDs behind the band hardly screamed high-budget. UK jazz is still jazz after all, with all its challenging harmony and abstract improvisation, and Garcia’s particular brand is hardly aimed at converting Ed Sheeran fans. Instead, her music digs into long and often noisy solos powered by splashy, busy drumming and colorful injections of dissonant harmony. Heads often only have slightly less improvisation than the solos themselves and hooks, while undoubtedly present, are hardly abundant.

With an audience of fans that get it (unlike Garcia’s recent televised performances at the BBC Proms or with Jools Holland), Garcia rightly had no hesitation in fully exploring every tune with epic solos and fluid song structure. Absorbing opener Source was a perfect example: the 12-minute studio version may be a bit much for some, but on the night it became a 20-minute jazz odyssey. Thankfully, it was difficult to get tired of the sticky, heavy dub reggae groove it its centre, underlined by a Daniel Casimir’s bubbly basslines and Tom Jones’ snappy sidestick. All four performers had plenty of time to make their introductions. Armon-Jones’ solo was captivating, segueing from a brief section of precise samba to a dense cacophony of glissandos and cluster chords. Daniel Casimir’s double bass solo was both the most succinct and successful solo of the bunch, adding more character and groove into his plucking than I thought was possible. A final, stupendous riff was greeted by a stunned applause, with Garcia noticeably reluctant to take back the lead.

As you can imagine, time went quickly and the band only had time to fit in a streamlined selection of six songs to play for the whole night. Garcia delivered some light-hearted and fun chat in between each tune. She had a tendency to get lost on a tangent about the origin of a song or the experience of playing her first tour post-lockdown, but even so it was lovely to see the obvious joy that performing her music to a crowd brings. “I’m in a good place right now,” she earnestly told the crowd at one point, to which we all cheered. If Queen Nubya was happy, then so were we.

The Message Continues followed a thought-provoking chat about Garcia passing on the ‘message’ of her heritage, which she encouraged us all to do too. The sparkling groove – one of Garcia’s most immediate and memorable – nods to her Guyanese and Trinidadian roots with a cumbia-informed bass riff and lightly shuffling drum work. Afterwards, Pace delivered a whole different world for the musicians to play in: a frenzied and overwhelming solo section was intended to mimic the stresses of constant touring and socialising with no rest. The eventual mayhem was made all the more impactful by what preceded it – a total bass solo from Casimir, for which the others left the stage completely. He was more than worthy of owning the stage for a few breathless minutes, each melody more beautifully adventurous than the last. I don’t think any of us wanted it to stop.

Another moment of surprising solace came with Stand With Each Other, a sparse combination of solo saxophone and tasteful afrobeat drumming. Here, Garcia’s outstanding tone was on full display; breathy, soulful and immaculately controlled. The saxophone really did seem to morph into a fifth limb – no longer merely an instrument, but a second voice through which to speak volumes more than words ever could. There was a spine-tingling sense of awe in the room as Garcia effortlessly faded out a long final note into silence.

Daniel Casimir’s solo at the start of Pace was one of the highlights

For all Garcia’s technical brilliance, it would be going too far to say her performance was flawless. Even Emma – an even stronger supporter of UK jazz than I am – admitted that her solos could get formulaic. Gradually building chromatically to ever higher, ever louder long notes seemed to be Garcia’s go-to game plan and, unlike Armon-Jones or Jones, there were few times we were wowed by her technical dexterity, even if her tone and command of her instrument is immense. A brief sortie into the squeaky and impressive-sounding altissimo range of her instrument during Pace was only partially successful, and certainly the more foghorn-like lower end of her tenor range had more impact during the big moments.

That said, Garcia doesn’t have to be John Coltrane to be an exciting artist, and seeing her and her friends create art in front of our eyes was a thrill unlike any of the over-rehearsed rock and pop concerts I’ve attended recently. As with most jazz performances, Garcia and her band of outstanding musicians were intent on creating something unique and impossible to replicate. Even Garcia’s chats were free-flowing and improvised, and the atmosphere in the room benefitted as a result. The venues and audience may remain relatively small thanks to the inaccessibility of her boundary-pushing style to the average listener, but Garcia deserves praise to sticking to what she loves. In an industry of Tiktok-pandering overnight millionaires and the same old chart-storming pop idols, a night at Gorilla was a pleasant reminder that this corner of fast-moving jazz well outside the mainstream isn’t going anywhere.

Undertone’s artists to watch for 2022
7
Jan

It’s been a great year here on Undertone. Now that 2021’s recaps are all complete, Alex Walden is here to guide us through the artists ready to take 2022 by storm.

It’s that time of year again. We’re all taking down our Christmas decorations and gearing up for the next year. Congratulations on making it through another year. This past year was a crazy one for music. We saw the return of some greats including J. Cole, Drake, Kanye West and, for the first time in 6 years, Adele. Yet, despite these amazing artists coming back, what can’t be ignored is the impact that the new wave has had on this year. Artists such as Jack Harlow, Lil Nas X and Doja Cat have managed to show us that the new wave of talent is here to stay and that the idea of artists coming and going is a thing of the past. There were also some new artists on the scene last year have still got room to grow. To that end, I present to you my top picks of artists to watch out for this year. Whether these artists will blow up this year remains to be seen, but these artists are currently very underrated and their careers far from finished.

Coshise

We’re kicking things off with a solid choice from Florida’s own Cochise. Originally from Jamacia, Cochise moved to Florida when he was young. It was there he would learn to play drums for his church choir as well playing soccer in his spare time. Upon discovering hip hop, Cochise started making music in college whilst trying to become a teacher in Japan until suddenly his songs blew up all over social media to the point where people had begun to leak his songs. Don’t get me wrong, leaking music is 100% wrong. Having said that, I was even more excited for the release of his hit song Tell Em after hearing the leaked snippet of the song. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one thinking like this, considering that the snippet had managed to gain so much hype that upon its release Cochise (and featuring artist $not) managed to bag themselves a music video from none other than the Quentin Tarantino of new wave music videos, Cole Bennet, who published the video on his Lyrical Lemonade channel. The song Tell Em is undoubtably one of the best upbeat tracks of last year. It features all the necessary ingredients for a perfect song to get you hyped up, with prominent use of 808s, a memorable hook and a smooth melody. Cochise has managed to find the perfect balance of hip-hop, trap and dancehall and has managed to infuse into his tracks to create a new psychedelic sound which will definitely serve him well in 2022.

VANO 3000

Next up is a choice that I know all my producers can get behind. VANO 3000 has repeatedly shown off his skills when it comes to finding and flipping samples. I originally discovered VANO 3000 very early this year when he posted clips of him and his friend flipping samples in his old truck. I remember falling in love with the vibe of watching two people just mess around on an old SP303 and have fun while seeing what they could come up with. VANO’s sounds always come with an extra dosage of good vibes which became widely recognised during last summer when VANO flipped a sample of BADBADNOTGOOD, which began to spread all over TikTok rapidly. The sound managed to bring a huge wave of nostalgia across adults and teens on the platform, and thus the Adult Swim trend was born. There are currently over 654,000 videos on Tik Tok alone of people using VANO 3000’s sound to bring their own version of Adult Swim bumps. This quickly became arguably the biggest trend on the social media platform, considering that I was seeing these kinds of videos on all of my social media, not just TikTok.

As of now, VANO has since released a fully polished instrumental of the Adult Swim sound as well as a couple beat tapes here and there. Looking at his social media, it appears that he thinks that his best bet at striking it big again is to make another track to bring back the Adult Swim trend which if I’m honest, I don’t see it working out because the only downside of this new age of the internet is that trends die out just as quick as they rise on social media, but I could be wrong. As far as his albums go, I find myself listening to TMS 2.0 often in my spare time. I look forward to seeing to what this man has in store for us next, considering I can never turn down a good sample flip.

Ryan Librada

Up next, we have probably the smallest artist I have on this list, giving a whole mix of sounds ranging from lo-fi to rock, Nevada’s own Ryan Librada is sure to go far in the future. Being a skater myself, I discovered Ryan on the YouTube channel Luis Mora, a cameraman and filmaker for the Erasedxproject clothing brand and skate crew. With over 1.56 million subscribers at the time of writing this piece, it’s safe to say that his work speaks for itself. The way he uses only one or two songs for a back in track for his videos is a great way to discover new tracks. I first heard the song RENO by Librada on a Tokyo night street skating edit. The song gives you a typical chilled out lo-fi vibe, yet it’s not like any lo-fi song you’ve heard before. It has a more upbeat feel to it when you add in the lyrics and drum style.

After this I began discovering songs such as Love Again and Down Bad and I couldn’t get enough of them. The 2010s rock guitar riffs mixed in with the modern trap drums puts an amazing spin on a genre I hold very dear to my heart. It took me back to my younger days when I would discover new songs from skate games I used to play.

Considering that Ryan Librada started making music just last year, it’s very clear that he’s not reached his peak yet, there’s a lot of potential that he is yet to discover, and it does show sometimes in his work, although I doubt that it will take long considering that every song he makes somehow improves in overall quality. I’m definitely excited to see what heights this artist can reach in the foreseeable future.

PinkPantheress

Let’s face it, you knew she was eventually going to be on this list. PinkPantheress has already been able to master the art of building a fanbase that desperately craves more of her short yet snappy style of music (let’s not forget that classic overly enthusiastic “hey” that we all love). Despite having previously written about her, she’s still making big progress as an artist. Since the release of her debut EP, PinkPantheress has had multiple interviews, including one with the internet’s busiest music nerd himself, Anthony Fantano, as well as the company Complex. Despite these major events, they are minor compared to the fact that she has also embarked on her first three live performances. Located in London, PinkPantheress decided to have three relatively small performances following the release of her EP. In her interview with Complex, she explains that she decided to choose to perform in relatively small venues due her thinking “it’s important to do intimate shows before you move on to the bigger ones. It’s a completely different atmosphere at smaller shows”. Clearly PinkPantheress knows to take things slow to ensure she doesn’t end up becoming one of those artists that just come and go. I still think that she is the biggest “what if?” artist of this year. She has the potential to bring a new wave of sound to mainstream media, yet there’s still that huge “what if?”: what if she doesn’t capitalise on her newfound fame?; what if this is her peak and she quickly fades out of the spotlight? Despite the suspense of her future as an artist, we can guarantee that she is bound to release very highly anticipated work in the near future.

Knucks

Finally, we stick to the UK for this artist. There’s always the ongoing debate about whether hip hop as a genre is nowhere near as good as it used to be. (I find this debate extremely annoying as all you’re doing by saying that is proving that you listen to the wrong music). In the UK this debate still rages on as the mainstream trap genre of UK rap has a heavy grip on the UK scene. However, one artist who definitely challenges this whole concept is Knucks. Hailing from North London, Knucks is easily becoming the biggest rapper you should know about. It’s honestly rare that I find an artist that is this talented that isn’t absolutely huge yet. I remember one day looking for new songs to add to one of my playlists when by luck, I stumbled upon Knucks’ single, Los Pollos Hermanos. I was amazed by how well this man was able to flow upon a beat. It sounded almost effortless, as if he was gliding upon the beat. After a couple listens, I quickly became intrigued as to what else Knucks could come up with, to which I found his album, NRG 105. I was amazed at how amazing this project sounded coming from an artist so small. The majority of songs on this project don’t even have over a million streams on Spotify yet they deserve so much more. However, one song sticks out from all the rest. With over 15 million streams as well as 9 million views on YouTube, Kucks’ shows off his storytelling and incredible flow on his hit track Home. With tag lines such as “can’t you see London’s burning, and you can’t duck this smoke” which will definitely be stuck in your head, as well as an amazing use of instruments ranging from pianos to saxophone, Home shows that Knucks is destined to become a force to be reckoned with in the UK scene. Considering that Knucks already has two albums and multiple singles under his belt, there’s not really much else you can ask him to perfect his craft even more. Honestly, I think Knucks has potential to make it mainstream as long as he keeps it consistent, he’s bound to go far this year.

So there you have it: five artists you should definitely look out for in 2022. Whether it’s that post punk era sound you’ve been missing for years or that fresh new flip of an old soul sample, I hope these artists give you the joy of listening to someone new that I experienced. Who knows who or what we’ll discover this year? As I’ve shown, this year I was introduced and re-introduced to multiple new sounds and genres that I’m glad to have found. Regardless of what happens, we can always assure that in the world of music, we’ll end up with a pretty good result.

Oscar Jerome live at Belgrave Music Hall review – a night of laughs, grooves and missed potential
2
Jan

In a belated end to his UK tour, Oscar Jerome had enough strong material and bewildering virtuosity to compete with the very best of his UK jazz peers. It’s unfortunate he was let down by a patchy setlist, limiting instrumentation and questionable sound design.

For a moment I questioned whether I’d ever actually see Oscar Jerome in Leeds as we suddenly found ourselves at the front of a lengthy queue outside Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen. It wasn’t the first time; this gig in particular has been toyed with by the pandemic. It was postponed twice from its now quaintly ambitious original date in October 2020 and a third attempt a year later tragically coincided with a city-wide venue boycott amidst a completely seperate, equally uncontrollable epidemic of syringe spikings in nightclubs across the country.

It was only once we had been let in to the chic yet understated Belgrave Music Hall that reality set in for me and my friends Emma and Fionn. Despite arriving at a leisurely 8pm, we really had benefitted from a quirk in the queuing system, and sauntered up to a gloriously quiet and queueless bar like royalty before taking our pick of standing spot in front of the stage (in the middle, right at the front, of course). At one point Oscar himself even walked across the near-empty audience space (just a few feet away from us!), prompting palpatations. Shadowy in a trench coat and with his two emmaculate mirrored locks of hair, we had to check with each other our anticipation for the gig hadn’t led to hallucination. No, Emma’s astonished face confirmed, it hadn’t.

To add to our pleasant surprise, it wasn’t particularly long before the man himself was just a few metres in front of us, with his trench coat now cast aside to reveal a playful striped t-shirt behind a chunky Ibanez guitar. I’ve spent good chunk of the 18-month build up to the gig daydreaming about just how good inevitable opener Sun For Someone would sound and feel live. That purring bassline paired with Ayo Salawu’s nimble jazz-funk drumming could surely be nothing but electrifying in the flesh. Indeed it was, especially after meditative solo guitar musings of Searching for Aliens, which worked well as a calm before the blissful storm that followed.

In truth, I felt some niggling disappointment as Sun For Someone segued into the decidedly less exciting Coy Moon. The levels were all off. The kick drum and that bass line – however competently played by Tom Dreissler – swallowed up both Jerome’s guitar and vocals, leaving the melody often noticeably warped and the need for a bit of wishful thinking in order to hear one of Jerome’s finest tracks in its full glory. Whilst it was a recurring frustration on the night, on balance I think the main cause of the issues was in a lack of gigging experience from me, Emma and Fionn. In our front-of-the-queue giddiness we had inadvertently selected sonically the worst spot in the house, resulting in a face full of kick drum whilst Jerome’s dulcet tones were directed into the space behind us by speakers beside the stage. We might have been close enough to examine the glossy sheen on Jerome’s faintly dyed hair or assess whether he needs to trim his nose hairs (he doesn’t), but in return the sound would never quite feel professional quality throughout the night.

Somewhat consolingly, it wasn’t just us. I overheard talk about the haphazard levels immediately after the gig had finished, and even in the middle of the set there was evidence that there was issues for the performers too. Jerome requested his mic to be turned up during and after Sun For Someone; Dreissler needed time to fiddle with his bass between songs later on and a misbehaving kick drum mic was a repeated concern for both Jerome and Salawu, at one point completely taking the limelight from a blistering Richie Smart conga solo. Whilst I’ve learnt my lesson that the front row isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’m sure there’s more the sound engineers could have done to make it a less significant drawback on the night.

If the jazz fans around me were annoyed by the sound issues, they didn’t show it. The mood in the room was one of celebration, with Jerome humble enough to engage with every slightly over-eager heckler. There was the obligatory marriage proposals (“I will if you can get me an EU passport,” Oscar offered) and an accepted request for happy birthday from a very possibly intoxicated fan. One man even managed to buy Oscar a pint and hand it up to him between songs. The resulting chant of “chug! chug! chug!” crossed a line. “I don’t do shit like that anymore,” Oscar laughed before taking a grateful sip.

Just as it had done for Declan McKenna, Orla Gartland and Nubya Garcia, the pandemic has created an unusually big gap between the release of Jerome’s strong debut album Breathe Deep and a subsequent tour. As a result, Jerome caved into temptation to devote a good deal of the gig to unreleased songs from the upcoming follow-up album. It’s a risky, and in my opinion a little impatient, decision to take, and the four new songs aired on the night proved to be a mixed bag. Groovy and hooky Berlin 1 was the pick of the bunch, but Feet Down South also provided a great opportunity for an arresting bass solo from Dreissler. Sweet Isolation, on the other hand, was the flattest moment of the whole evening: a drab, meandering track that did little to inspire movement from the audience beyond a polite nod of the head. Devoting so much time to new songs also meant less time for tried-and-true hits. Give Back What U Stole From Me and Fkn Happy Days ‘N’ That – both highlights from Breathe Deep – were the two most obvious set list casualties.

As the sound levels improved, the highlights came with the songs that relied most on Jerome’s guitar virtuosity. Joy is You, a heartwarming ode to his newborn nephew, saw Jerome have the stage all to himself yet still provide ample soul and colour with some dextrous plucking. “As the past slips through the window / The joy is you” he sang with a smile, revealing some tender vulnerability that was well recieved by the crowd. By contrast, sophisticated and dynamic Gravitate was powered by Salawu’s brilliant, stumbling drum groove, but still saw Jerome improvising at his scintillating best amidst sumptuous melodic bass playing from Dreissler. An extended guitar solo was the only opportunity Jerome had to display his full jazz solo prowess, developing a seed of an idea into an all-consumming spectacle before kicking into one last chorus.

Jerome’s lack of saxophonist was not as fatal as Orla Gartland’s lack of keyboardist a few months ago, but certain songs did lose a good deal of their original detail as a result. 2 Sides and fan favourite Do You Really sounded simply incomplete without the great hooks that had been offered by saxophone and backing vocals on the originals. The three of us certainly tried our best to fill in the melodic gaps with our own voices on the latter, but there was only so much we could do. That said, sax or no sax, Do You Really remains a career highlight for Jerome, and a strong chorus was rapturously recieved by the crowd, prompting demands for an encore, with which the band happily obliged.

There was mock horror just before the start of the gig when we spied on the setlist taped to the stage floor that underwhelming recent single No Need was scheduled to be the final song of the night. We were in for shock: No Need was easily one of the best tracks of the night, taking us from rapid swing to hypnotic funk and back again and at last turning Belgrave Music Hall into a proper dancefloor. Salawu’s tastefully played real drums and Jerome’s rhythmic guitar made perfect replacements for the studio version’s drum machine and wishy-washy keys, and the transition from jazz to dance was executed with a thrill lost on the original song. To my huge relief, Jerome assured us that the concert was being recorded; I’m already desperate for a second listen.

As he bid farewell with No Need‘s slap bass and pounding kick drum, I was reminded that Jerome, for all his outstanding musical ability, is still in the early stages of a very promising career. With little more than an album’s worth of material at his disposal, conjuring up a five-star set was always an uphill battle, and dealing with less experienced sound engineers at the smaller venues may just be par for the course. Even so, after having had a brief chat with him after the gig, the post-gig high was very sweet indeed. The three of us practically skipped through central Leeds and back to the car, jubilantly singing Do You Really with a tote bag full of signed vinyls swinging from my shoulder. At last, there was no gig left to postpone, no songs left to wishfully daydream. The long wait had been worth it.