Leaves

Leaves have been here before – three years ago to be exact. The indie Icelandics played to a similarly packed room, holding court with a set of tunes that led this writer into paroxysms about “the majesty of Echo and The Bunnymen, the swagger of Oasis, The Verve at their most insolently sexy”. They went on to release an album - ‘Breathe’ - which swallowed you whole in a warm bath of poetic ambition and acted as one of that period’s finest antidotes to the ear-battering scratchiness of the prevailing garage rock scene. Then they disappeared.

But they’re back, back, back! Back with a major-label contract, a bunch of new band members and a new sound which suggests Leaves have finally lost the struggle with some particularly dark demons. Majesty? A little deflated. Swagger? Gone. Insolently sexy? Er, nah. Where once the lead singer sported the boyish looks of a young Beck, he now looks bedraggled, care-worn, lost. All five of them look like they’ve been delving a little too deeply into their own souls to remember to eat properly.

Their music takes introversion to ridiculous levels. These flatly undynamic songs occur somewhere in the emotional wasteland between Beck’s ‘Sea Change’ album and the emoting major-league bedwetters. ‘Angela Test’ is the prettiest, with its baroque three-part harmonies. The piano-led ‘Whatever’ suggests Leaves could do a Coldplay, surely a consideration for Island Records. Only ‘Good Enough’ provides a much-needed injection of guitar-riffing excitement.

So, with nary a track off the first album for our troubles, Leaves slope off to consider the terrible majesty of the slowly moving Icelandic glaciers. Or something.