Pretty Girls Make Graves

A hundred times better than the 100 Club.
“A thousand,” says my date for the evening.
Can you hold this? I need to dance.

And I do: straight down to the front, hands aloft, head tilted so that my eyes are staring straight at stars only obscured by the venue’s ceiling; on stage, Pretty Girls Make Graves are climaxing, vibrantly and brilliantly, ‘Speakers Push The Air’ punching above its weight in a set that’s nicely balanced. The brand new sits beside the classic with perfect coherency.

A few moments earlier, bassist Derek Fudesco approaches the microphone: “You know, thanks you guys. I thought, at the start with things going wrong, that this show would suck, but…”

Anything but: tonight the atmosphere is electric, the beer that spills from my cup a necessary casualty of this particular war, only it isn’t us against them. There are no opponents, no parties to influence or forces to overthrow – this is a union of souls, each clambering over the other to crane a neck and grab a glimpse of the spinning Andrea Zollo, the unconventional beauty whose powerful vocals command us to sing along. “This one’s called ‘The New Romance’,” she says; the roaring reception – impressive given the gaps in the crowd – doesn’t subside until she lyrically lays down the facts: “Wishing this would last forever is futile when you know it won't.”

Indeed – no stylistic incarnation of Pretty Girls has lasted, the upshot of which has been an alienating of particular sections of their fanbase come each record’s release; to say that their latest long-player, Élan Vital, received a mixed critical reception is to gloss over the panning it endured in some circles. Tonight, though, the songs that initially left fans and critics alike colder than they’d expected are blistering: ‘Pyrite Pedestal’ perfectly telegraphs the band’s permanent desire to progress, to grow and develop. “I guess these days I'm someone else,” offers Zollo. “The real tragedy is that your act is just boring and old,” she adds, referring either to the predicted split opinions or her band’s own need to leave the past in the past. Or both. Or neither. Sorry, I’m to busy dancing to care…

The second song from their latest isn’t alone in making a sizeable impression: ‘The Nocturnal House’ is a dizzying, disorientating song, one that wraps the listener up in a patchwork of sound, each facet stitched to the next by a thread that sparkles like dew; ‘Pictures Of A Night Scene’, meanwhile, sees drummer Nick Dewitt strap a bass about him, and Fudesco drop into the audience. The talent of relatively new member Leona Marrs must not be overlooked, either: it is she, predominantly, that gifts these songs a greater depth than their predecessors, and her front-of-stage accordion playing is truly hypnotising.

Slightly sweaty, a smile on my face the size of a deep-sea rift, I step out into this night’s own scene: a swarm of bus-catching late-night commuters and already intoxicated revellers, merrily wandering their own way, free of directionary sense. My date cuts through the crowd on her bicycle; I get on the first number 4 that pulls up.

Yeah, a thousand…