If there is any justice in the modern music world (and I fear we know the answer to that one) the new album from brothers Peter and David Brewis and their cohorts in Field Music (guitarist Kev Dosdale and new bassist Andrew Lowther) will be the one the catapults them Elbow-style into the big time.
The Wearsiders have little in common with the Bury men musically, but they seem to be in a similar place to Guy Garvey's mob pre-Mercury.
Plumb, their latest Memphis Industries disc, is a punchy collection of hook-laden tracks, and its compactness – 15 tracks in 35 minutes – is a more commercial proposition than the meandering, if excellent, 70 minutes that was 2010's Field Music (Measure). Single A New Town and BBC Radio 6 favourite (I keep thinking about) A New Thing were also excellent live, where the complexities of the band's prog-pop, as it has been termed, are reproduced in precise detail but the ensemble sound is more powerful and funkier than on disc.
Despite technical problems – a defunct synthesiser – and a couple of false starts, this was a gloriously cheery gig on both sides of the footlights, with audience singalong participation assisting with problem one. As well as owing a debt to the late 1960s Canterbury scene, Field Music also recall 10CC at their early inventive best. Surely the world will catch up with them soon?
HHHH
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