Vivers: Things of note about Young Husband: their drummer looks like Jon Culshaw having sex. Their bassist looks like my ex-housemate gone wrong. Their singer and guitarist is quite good looking: bastard.
Saesneg: Am I such a total shit that I judge the guy’s baseball cap and think “yep, I’ve seen the likes of you before in other crappy bands”? Music isn’t about visuals! Otherwise it wouldn’t be music, it would be fashion or something. Kids, lets bring it back to the roots…
Vivers: If you play basic guitar pop you need diamond melodies. These are more like tin. I’m 30 and never really liked the Bluetones in the first place. Need more, need more. We go to the merch stall and eat all the Loose sweets in front of them.
Saesneg: Yummy Loose sweets. I don’t like their tunes, especially cus a lot of them are out of tune. So they’re not really tunes, they’re nearer Fishermen’s Friends. You know, they give you a funny taste at the back of your throat and don’t sort your cough. Rubbish.
Vivers: More promise in Ex-Lovers: their jangling comes taut with nervous energy, and what could be over-fey comes backed with a tight band that paper over the more obvious cracks with a nice weightiness. Some nice tattoo work though, especially on the arm of the keyboard player, who also looks like the singer from Mazzy Star, and whose name I spend the night trying to bloody recall.
Saesneg: I like Ex-Lovers, sort of. There are some moments here where their tweeness diverges into healthy and hearty chamber pop, with the exuberance of an Arcade Fire barnstormer. Their vocals are a bit flighty though for my liking.
Vivers: Anyone see the Rosie Taylor Project when they played Loose last year? Swooning, languid, beautiful slowpop. Ex-Lovers are like a double speed version tonight, only half as good, with a quarter of the songs. Not too bad then, if a little grumpy. WHAT IS HER BLOODY NAME?
Saesneg: I reckon they should be less slow here and more fast. Their pacier songs are miles better than their more reflective numbers. Head over to Clwb bar for pint – stand there for 15 minutes while waiting for a pint. Ultrasound grumble.
Vivers: Hope Sandoval. Anyway, look at all these young, good looking people! Is Emmy The Great a weird choice for crushed in, mouthing all the words adulation? Possibly not: as the quiet songs roll in, and the constant narrative stream of the lyrics tap tap taps away your cynicism, and sinks under your skin, it dawns that this here is the good stuff.
Saesneg: Was I on a parallel universe? Emmy the Great is a wonderfully competent musician, that I have no doubt. She can certainly sing, and play the guitar. Whether she can write a song which holds my interest for longer than 20 seconds is another matter. I keep hearing she writes nice songs and makes interesting observations but when every 10th word is “you”, and every last word emphasised in exactly the same way, I begin to wonder whether she’s a cool kids David Gray.
Vivers: There’s bits of Belle And Sebastian here, in the way wordy melodies are rolled around, layered with a little violin and guitar, gradually spreading wings. And weirdly, there’s a big dollop of top Irish folker Fionn Regan too: the way Emmy’s singsong vocals come tinkling like rain – verbose, playful, a little off kilter.
Saesneg: Sure, some of the imagery is pretty, but at the heart the songs are about nothing different. You can catch me dancing along, the music is jaunty and fun can be good, but if I stop and listen to the songs, inevitable during the slower numbers, all I get is a hollow box where some real emotion should be. I was left a bit cold by it to be honest. Oh well.
Vivers: I like daring to be quiet. These songs completely win me over.
Saesneg: Mmmm, Loose sweets make me happy again.
