Music
Emmy the Great, King Tut's, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
Four stars
When Emma-Lee Moss thanked the crowd for their patience before one song, it could have stood for more than just that number. It's been a few years since the songstress was here on her own terms (a Christmas collaboration with Ash's Tim Wheeler occurred in the meantime) and this return marked a shift, both sonically and lyrically.
There were still idiosyncratic touches, though. Opening track Algorithm featured a flickering video of Moss as a backdrop, before the singer joined her two-piece band onstage. It reoccurred on several occasions, as if the hologram of Princess Leia at the start of Star Wars was rolling in for a duet.
Synthesisers are to the fore in her newest work, the folk-pop of before toned down but still present. Of her recent "S" EP, the standouts proved to be the surprisingly club-friendly rumble of Solar Panels, and Somerset's stark, near hymnal opening, an emotional gutpunch of a song that name-checked both Tennessee Williams and Dinosaur Jr neatly.
Such wordplay doesn't surprise, even if Moss's gigs can sometimes come coated with a hipster-friendly sheen, from dedications to Joaquin Phoenix to a Waitrose mention. Her best songs, though, are simply pop music that breaks the heart only to lift it melodically, with the guitar and synth backing extremely effective in stressing both her wordplay and a tremendously silky voice.
Only Dance With Me failed to register, a disappointingly dull dose of shuffling synths, while the main set's closure after nine songs arrived too abruptly. Solace arrived in the encore, though, with a stunning vocal display on the bare-boned Trelick Tower ample evidence why it's good to have her back.
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