Club Fandango

Okay, we're getting there. Energised by a Mercury nomination and galvanised by every gig they play, Maps are sounding better with each show.

To recap, this is a band that requires more slack than most, because while Maps The Album is a one-man orchestra - James Chapman - Maps The Touring Band is four extra chaps Chapman has gathered to go tadaa! and recreate, onstage, the sound of Maps The Album. Or at least just sound great.

Tonight, it works. The expansive sound of We Can Create seduces you just as it seduced the creases out of the Mercury suits; opening triumvirate ‘So Low, So High’, ‘You Don't Know Her Name’ and ‘Elouise’ swell the walls of the Borderline in search of a Brixton Academy, a Hammersmith Apollo or - fuck it - Glastonbury, other stage, circa sunset.

Add in a shared sense of privilege / smugness at seeing an act in a venue they'll soon outgrow, and you've got a pretty blinding night in Soho.

It's not all backslapping and handclapping though. Chapman's wispy voice fits the album like a bubble wrap glove, but live, he needs to be cranked up and the sound engineer thinks he's watching Freddie sodding Mercury. As a result, Chapman easily gets overwhelmed by the wash of chiming guitars and samples.

Plus, the Achilles Heel of We Can Create - that the trick is stretched too thinly - also rears its ugly tendon. But it's not the periods of thumb twiddling that stick in the brain when you have tracks as glorious as ‘To The Sky’, which is so bloody beautiful it could melt ice caps.

At times, We Can Create is as soaring as Spiritualized, serene as Screamadelica and as euphoric as Radiohead when they go all trancey, and we have now seen that Maps The Touring Band can touch these heights too, albeit sporadically.

The Mercury Music Prize has gone to far less deserving candidates.