Scout Niblett

Dynamics. So many of rock’s back pages are stories told by the push of a pedal, the sudden click of a groove, the martial thwack of a drum. It’s a quality lacking in all the performances tonight, each one producing a very different effect.

First up are Australia’s very fine Devastations, a smart, patient three-piece with all the weird, lumbering grace of giraffes in motion. Their insidious minimalism reminds me of an industrial Talk Talk and goes a long way to selling the songwriting which is at times undeveloped, and if their stately immovability occasionally leaves the audience unmoved, it’s more than compensated for by the disembodied swagger of their austere ‘80s pop.

I’ll admit I lied a little in the case of second-billed Florence & The Machine, her problem being not so much a lack of dynamics as a lack of vocal control. That, and she’s incorrigibly posh. Confusing nuance with childish affectation, she keens, hollers and flutters her A-line skirts with irritating gusto, even managing to scupper a Beirut cover by dipping inaudibly below her range. Goodbye, Florence – come back when you’re not annoying! Which is never.

Finally there’s Scout Niblett (pictured), whose company this scribe was seeking after being driven to her arms by a DiS office resounding with slights on her good name and a harboured a soft spot for her new Bonnie Prince Billy-assisted single ‘Kiss’.

It proves an ill-fated embrace. The folksy numbers are largely tuneless affairs and the grungey numbers are as indulgent and shapeless as the heavy-knit sweaters the genre’s original proponents shared a sorry predilection for. The boredom is occasionally lifted by Niblett’s modest gifts for vocal expression, and the appearance of a drummer who helps introduce a White Stripes-ish elasticity to her guitar playing.

”Are you overrated?” asks one audience member after an invitation to ask her anything, and she looks confused. At this point I make a thoroughly dynamic exit, a jeering office awaiting my sheepish return.

Photo: Half-inched from Scout's own Flickr stream