Photo: Fiona McKinlay
In the pop world, the female singer/songwriter has recently acquired its own special, unit shifting place. You’ve got your Tunstall’s, your Thom’s and your MacDonald’s, all battling to secure a spot in the pecking order, while various pretenders fall by the wayside. The newest of which is Kat Flint, a chirpy lass armed with merely a acoustic guitar and a soothing voice. The music is pleasant, if rather banal and while her voice is solid enough it never really rises above average, meaning she’s probably ideal for background music but less suited for centre stage.
Before new rave and countless other scenes and trends, there was the new summer of love, of which Delays were a key part. While that summer and scene may have frittered away, the Southampton band are still going strong, with a recent new EP released, and a forthcoming third album out next year. There’s still a boyish enthusiasm about the group, vocalist Greg Gilbert bounding to the front of the stage with youthful exuberance, indulging in the odd bit of rock star histrionics. The rest of the band are more reserved, though Gilbert’s keyboardist brother Aaron has retained his penchant for stooping over his keyboards from time to time. The music for the most part has an insatiable perkiness too, with Gilbert’s falsetto still as ear catching as ever throughout the hour long set that contained a mixture of tracks from both their previous albums, along with some newer tracks worked in too.
And in places, it would take a heart of stone not to fall for Delays. ’Long Time Coming’ is as close to summer pop perfection as it gets, an utterly gorgeous track that’s gloriously uplifting. ’Hey Girl’ is the dreamy sound of the 60’s being placed in the modern day and the set closing ‘Valentine’ is another slice of heavily danceable, catchy pop. The set is populated with numbers like that and though they’re often encased in a woozy haze, the out and out poppiness of them can’t be denied.
The newer material played doesn’t fare quite as well. Worst of all is an untitled newbie from the next album, which suggests the band have decided that aping plodding sludge rock from the 1970’s is a good career move. It isn’t, being both dull and lethargic and simply lacking the gusto that Delays songs normally have. From the 'Love Made Visible' EP, the title track also doesn’t fare well, not possessing any real power and instead coming off a bit flat. The only other real criticism of Delays is that the set itself comes across a bit disjointed and instead of flowing naturally it has a stop/start feel to it.
While the set may have been stop/start, luckily the music itself had enough peaks to suggest Delays are still a strong force, though with the new material being mediocre, Gigwise wonders how long they can continue to survive on the strength of past glories.
