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Villagers have returned home to Dublin after a high profile support slot with Elbow on their latest tour that wraps up tonight, the only Irish date of the tour. A devoted few get in early to catch Villagers. However, in a venue the size of the O2, their set – drawn mostly from slow-burning debut Becoming A Jackal – doesn’t quite connect and one can’t help but feel that this band and these songs belong in a more intimate venue. For a support band, they lack the hooks, choruses and charisma to make an impression on those undecided/apathetic punters who might be here, purely, to see Elbow. The title track elicits the loudest cheer of Villagers’ set, but this wasn’t Villagers’ finest hour.

Walking on stage to a lavish red curtain back-drop, Elbow’s sound of big drums, chunky bass lines, strings and Guy Garvey’s tenor voice, effortlessly fill every corner of the venue. Elbow hit a groove in a set that begins promisingly by opening with ‘The Birds’, ‘The Bones of You’ and ‘Lippy Kids’. As a live band, Elbow has grown leaps and bounds since their May 2001 gig in Temple Bar Music Centre in support of Mercury Prize nominated debut Asleep In The Back. Garvey makes for an unlikely stadium-rock front man. The runway stage into the audience, along with his witty banter in between songs, is a successful attempt at bringing the audience in closer, making the experience more intimate in contrast to the band’s sound. At one point, the remaining band members join Garvey on the runway stage for an acoustic intro to ‘Weather to Fly’ and shortly leave to finish the song with full, electric arrangements. In a way, it’s the most telling song of the night; a song Garvey wrote about the band, its performance here tonight is a visual representation of the how the band have mutated from British music’s best kept secret to where they are now.

The set list, however, finds Elbow on cruise control. They don’t delve too far back into their back catalogue. Instead, they play it safe with a 17 song set that is drawn mainly from Build A Rocket Boys! and The Seldom Seen Kid, with just three tracks from 2005’s Leaders Of The Free World. Their first two efforts – 2001’s Asleep In The Back and 2003’s Cast Of Thousands – weren’t written for the arenas that their most recent records were and therein lies the element of risk: can these early songs work in an arena? It’s a relief, then, when ‘Grounds for Divorce’ arrives during the set; it changes a mood and tempo that has become quite even paced and quite sedate when Elbow should be firing on all cylinders.

Finishing, quite predictably, on ‘One Day Like This’, arms are in the air, and Elbow is home dry. Given that this is their first tour of the arenas, they already seem like old hands in what is a well-co-ordinated show. Here’s hoping that when they hit the festivals in the summer that they’re able to shift gears more convincingly and give a wider representation of their enviable discography.

Originally published by State.ie

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I Am Kloot – Sky at Night

(Shepherd Moon / EMI)

Manchester three-piece I Am Kloot have spent almost ten years swinging wildly between sounds. Debut album Natural History brought Jonny Bramwell’s distinctively Northern English songs beyond the masses of his hometown and continued the social commentary and wit of his solo album You, Me and the Alarm Clock, released under the pseudonym of Johnny Dangerously. Although Natural History spawned songs that are now staples of the band’s live shows, the album was too quiet, too basic in scope and lacked any element of surprise. The follow- up, I Am Kloot, found the band over– asserting their appetite for crashing rock songs, while Gods and Monsters were the sound of musicians bleeding the life out of their songs in the studio. On I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge, the band hit a groove. Recorded live in their Stockport studio, it was a band capturing the feel of their songs and creating an overarching mood throughout the record.

Throughout Sky at Night – produced by Guy Garvey and Craig Potter of Elbow – Bramwell makes a strong case for his being one of Britain’s greatest living songwriters. Clearly, his closest contemporaries are Shack’s Michael Head and Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley, both of whom are recalled on opener ‘Northern Skies’ and ‘To the Brink’, respectively. ‘Northern Skies’ is a rambling, travelling folk song, strongly reminiscent of Here’s Tom with the Weather / Corner of Miles and Gil– era Shack. Its finger- picked folk, restless drums and lush strings move the album along in the direction of a fine folk- rock record.

However, ‘To the Brink’ weighs down the euphoric rush of ‘Northern Skies’. A combination of the late- night, down-and-out, character of Hawley’s Coles Corner and Serge Gainsbourg– esque orchestration, which creates a mystique that defines the record’s overall mood: one of soul searching darkness, which is achieved naturally through Bramwell’s vulnerable voice and his use of minor keys. ‘Fingerprints’ continues from where ‘Northern Skies’ took off, only every verse punctuated by a frenetic ensemble that betrays the simplicity of this trio. The song’s coda of maudlin strings immediately leads one to The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, itself a masterpiece of Northern– English realism.

Lyrically, Bramwell is at his most ribald and witty in ‘Proof’, where self- reflection breathes new life into cliches: “Say, d’you wanna spin another line/ like we had a good time/ not that I need proof”. ‘I Still Do’ and ‘Same Shoes’ find him digging deep and lamenting passed opportunities.

What makes Sky at Night such a success is its constant reach for every song’s real personality. On ‘The Moon is a Blind Eye’, thundering drums and sparse piano lines play behind Bramwell’s voice. Small touches in the mix all combine to create a great song that builds slowly with ease. Only ‘Lately’, with its chorus that’s too- close- for- comfort to Joe Cocker’s version of ‘Get by with a Little Help from My Friends’, intrudes on the album’s continuity. Minor gripes aside, Sky at Night is the sound of a band that have never been more comfortable in their skin.

Originally published by State.ie