This is going to be a slightly equivocal review, I think. Robin is a new artist, and I always think twice if I’m going to be less than entirely generous about people you may never have heard of before.

What do I mean? Well I’m not entirely convinced by all of this album. There are a couple of tracks, most notably Somewhere, which are pretty unremarkable – I’m thinking Hugh Grant starring in another of those dismal Working Title romcoms of his, basically. Going to his MySpace page, there are a couple more like that, which made me a little nervous, I had to admit.

Associating these lapses with the rest of this album is easy, but really completely wrong. It’s actually a fabulous album for the most part, really it is: warm, melancholy, gentle, witty and just playful enough that the sparse instrumentation and generally slow pace never flirt with tedium. It has real life, this record, albeit a low-key, non-intrusive kind of life.

He plucks and rumbles along, in a most English manner, tells his stories in a plain and unpretentious way that is really personal and really engaging. By the end of the record you realise you’ve listened to the sort of music that feels like a relaxed night in with a good friend at the end of a tiring week. And you’re a bit drunk, but not too sozzled. And you feel a little sleepy, but in a nice, warm way. Things are fine, actually, aren’t they?

Bluesy and folky, with enough embellishment to add texture, but which never detracts from the gentle strum of the guitar and raspy, but not growling quality of his voice. It is minimal, but it’s not sparse, and it may be a bit DIY, but it’s not amateurish, and it may not grab you instantly, but it’s a really bloody good album.

Robin Grey – The Last Time I Saw David
Robin Grey – The Finchley Waltz
And one that’s not from the album:
Robin Grey – Shakes & Shudders

website (buy the album here) | hype | amazon on mp3 (only available in god bless america, I think)

I don’t like the Ark as a venue at the best of times, and the fucking shameful treatment dished out to Eagleowl, who played before The Low Lows here tonight, was just fucking embarrassing. People just talked over the performance, and if the band got any louder they they just raised the volume of their conversation to avoid the inconvenience of actually showing the band even a fragment of fucking respect. Fucking pathetic. Unfortunately, Eagleowl don’t play loud enough music to actually be able to drown the wankers out, which meant the rest of us just had to sit through it. Bloody ridiculous. If you don’t like it, fuck off outside and talk. I have been to enough crap gigs recently where I didn’t like the bands enough, found myself talking too much and promptly decided it would be best if myself and my pal left the room until they finished. It’s called a bare minimum of fucking manners, and The Ark audience would have done well to try and bloody well show some.

Fortunately The Low Lows do indeed make a racket, and any chatter was instantly swallowed in a buzz of noise and feedback. Their recent album, Shining Violence, is fuzzy enough, but there’s something much more primal about the live show.  The music has an angrier, looser vibe on stage.  It feels much less controlled, as if it were somehow likely to break loose and launch itself at you.

It wasn’t the swirl of experimental feedback that I was somehow expecting, don’t ask me why, but what it was was a more feral, confrontational version of its recorded self.  Between the nasal bark of the delivery and the amazing levels of reverb on his mic channel, PL Noon’s voice was pretty much indecipherable, but that didn’t matter so much.  The feeling in his voice drove home the added force of the music beautifully.

There was much more synth in the live show that I had noticed on the record as well, which was interesting.  Synths have been a staple of the classic indie-pop combo for some time now, from the angular haircut bands to the more arch dancier bands, but with the Sargasso Trio using them so successfully in what is essentially a folk-pop band and now this, it appears that the instrument is enjoying its spell in the limelight.  In this scenario, set against the buzz of guitars, it did sterling work, bringing an dystopian surreality to songs that for the most part were already slipping sideways in a barely controlled manner.

You know when you go to a gig with not all that much knowledge of a group and come out thinking ‘Nope, these guys really are the business’?  Well this was one of those gigs.

The Low Lows – Modern Romance
The Low Lows – Sparrow

website | hype | amazon