The Joy Formidable
Ruby Lounge, Manchester
14/03/2010

Times were when The Joy Formidable could creep up and suddenly sell out Relentless Garage in London. Ok, so that was once – last year; but the point remains that unlike the past couple of years, where the Welsh-cum-London trio have seen their organic growth eagerly willed on by a core of devoted fans, that core has now grown large, and discovery has become expectancy. The Fly featured mini-album ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’ in its Top 20 albums of 2009, and we were by no means alone in dishing out acclaim. England expects…

A delight to report then that on the first date of their Spring UK tour, The Joy Formidable deliver emphatically; clearly we were foolish to think they’d do anything otherwise.The eerie spoken monologues that intersperse songs tonight are as dark as it gets over the course of an hour, everything else is a sheer euphoric rush.

The shoegaze trio are confident enough to finish their main set with new song ‘Popinjay’, and haven’t forgotten rock ‘n’ roll’s simple live pleasures – the addictive repetition of a single note intro, the swathes of feedback that greet every infectious hook. And cheap thrills they aren’t, not when songs like ‘Whirring’ and ‘While The Flies’ can tug at the emotions so, or when diminutive lead singer Ritzy steps up onto the barrier so that we can see the sparks of genuine excitement flickering on her eyes. Excited about what? Does she get the same buzz from her own music as us? Or is she simply delighted at the reaction they’re getting? Either way, there’s the feeling that The Joy Formidable take as much as they give to the audience, something that no amount of expectancy can supersede.

Simon Jay Catling