Audrey

One song is all The Monroe Transfer need; the audience – large, surprisingly so given it’s Sunday night and pissing down outside – stands transfixed by the seven-piece’s standalone offering this evening. Its name escapes, mumbled during the fading chatter ahead of the first instance of bow on strings. It runs for what is probably twenty minutes but feels like forever, and not in a negative sense, the band members visibly guiding the composition through varied stages of evolution. Beside me, two members of the next band on are flabbergasted, their mouths dropping open only for decency to snap jaws right back. From delicate passages of duel violin-led serenity (or is that a viola? Forgive my squinted-eyes ignorance) to a combustive climax that finds our stood-central (sometime) lyricist attacking his electric guitar with a fury clearly noticeable in his eyes, the cacophony building until the entire room feels a few inches off the floor. Slump, bang; bar talk follows some of the best applause a first-on act has ever received in the Luminaire.

After such an epic opening gambit, it’s inevitable that Swedish four-piece Audrey (pictured) will seem rather slight of sound in comparison. And, true to form, their picks from last year’s excellently melancholic Visible Forms LP can’t match the bluster and bombast of their predecessors’ sole offering. Thanks are given and meant, both for the audience showing up and behaving perfectly during the band’s quieter moments – the usual humming muttering is conspicuous by its absence – and for The Monroe Transfer, who’ve certainly won themselves a fair few fans this evening. Of their songs this evening, it’s the heart-tingling ‘Mecklenburg’ that truly stands out; Visible Forms’ opener is a tear-jerker on record, and live it’s even more affecting. With all four contributing vocals at different points, the mix occasionally renders the gentle female vocals rather lost and lonely beneath some pounding drums (no fault of the sound man, but rather the musicians in this instance it seems), but when all levels are on song Audrey prove to be quite magnificent.

While Audrey let their songs creep from quiet, Yndi Halda’s assault is more full-frontal. The dynamic instrumental – or are they? – quintet go for volume almost straight away, their attention-grabbing and emotionally weighty arrangements torching the air above all onlookers. Opinions bemoaning predictability can be checked at the door tonight, for while it’s true that the Kentish act do follow a formula established some years earlier by instrumental acts home and abroad, their execution is stunningly powerful. And, besides, the generic nature of their earliest material seems ready for replacing – a new song is introduced, currently untitled, and finds the band flexing previously unseen creative muscles. An acoustic guitar? Vocals? What is going on here? When questions are left unanswered, it’s only right to assume that something good is going on here.

Sadly, train times force DiS into an earlier-than-hoped exit. A note for bands playing the Luminaire in future: stick as best you can to the noted stage times or else anyone with a house south of the river and work tomorrow will miss half your headline set. Thanks.