Tindersticks
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
22/03/2010

Throughout Tindersticks’ triumphant Queen’s Hall set, members of an otherwise reverent audience call out for their favourite songs to be performed. These fans are presumably unaware of the difficulty that attempting to fulfil these requests would pose to the tight seven-piece, so complex and finely orchestrated are their arrangements. Still, the breadth of the titles requested offers evidence that, contrary to popular belief, the band’s powers never really did wane in the wake of their third album, 1997′s ‘Curtains’. Their sound may have shown fewer signs of development, but they have proved consistently capable of breathing life into this literate, melancholy soul music, expertly balancing the intimate and the cinematic to the delight of a loyal fanbase.

Nevertheless, the reinvigoration of Tindersticks, which has continued apace since 2008’s The Hungry Saw, has undoubtedly prolonged the group’s shelf-life, and leant its three original members a renewed sense of purpose. Taking to the stage to the jazzy rumble of ‘Falling Down a Mountain’, their current, eighth LP’s title track, the broadening of the band’s sonic palette is immediately apparent. The sound is unmistakably Tindersticks’, yet is murkier and looser than on past efforts; Stuart Staples’ distinctive mantra-like vocals buried beneath clattering drums and bursts of unhinged saxophone.

The following ‘Keep You Beautiful’ finds the frontman in more familiar territory, delivering a lovelorn nocturnal ballad over a sparse backdrop, augmented by whispered harmonies, delicate triangle and a slightly disconcerting key-change. While the track’s studio incarnation sounds a little flat, it benefits greatly from the expansive live set-up and contrasts effectively with dense, organ-led classic ‘Marbles’.

The current presence of multi-instrumental Irish songwriter David Kitt has undoubtedly fuelled the group’s move away from its melodramatic origins and imbued it with ingeniously minimalistic sensibilities. When running through more immediate, up-tempo material, such as the claustrophobic call-and-response of ‘Black Smoke’ and ‘Harmony Around My Table’, a nod to Northern Soul, the performance still feels like a formal recital, such is the precision with which the band plays. Even ‘Bathtime’’s crunching guitars possess a fragile beauty. By the time they close with the typically lovely ‘Raindrops’, there’s little doubt among the audience that no other act can  convey romantic desperation quite so well, let alone sustain such a level of quality for a full two hours.

Lewis Porteous