I know that as a critic one shouldn’t go into a gig with preconceptions, but one does, and given what I know of The Joy Formidable (TJF) I was expecting this review to be a good solid 3 stars. And the propensity for the songs to drift a little into one long heavy/quiet/heavy again sound if you didn’t pay attention meant that it almost was. But everyone at this sold out gig was paying attention, and the band really knew how to capitalise on it.

A couple of hours earlier, singer/guitarist Ritzy Bryan had told me that they loved to play “vibey” gigs, and there was no shortage of vibe here. I’d expected the venue to be a function room tacked on to the back of a church, but to my pleasant surprise it was actually inside the main building, with the band playing to a backdrop of two big stained-glass windows, the white walls lit up with eerie purple spotlights. By the time the band were about to come on, the full room of people was getting impatient, but TJF took their time to build the appropriate amount of tension. A gradually building drone started to come from the PA, the full lighting rig suddenly came alive, and only after a teasing moment did they enter the stage. Then suddenly the tension was released, as everything was subsumed in the movement of the drums and bass driven verse of ‘The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie’, followed by a huge, expansive, extremely loud chorus.

All this is to say that TJF are very adept at manipulating the crowd, and the situation of a live performance. Yes it was loud, and they ‘rocked out’ (despite Bryan’s restrictive-looking high heels), but just as important were the quiet moments, where the assault on either side was left to hang in the air temporarily. More importantly, it was clear how much they were enjoying playing this intimate kind of gig, and making a real effort to connect with the crowd: I overheard the promoter saying that they’d insisted on playing on the floor, almost amongst the audience, and this they did with smiles on faces, eyes goading us to share in their enjoyment. Safe to say, any trepidations I might have had were soundly dispelled.