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Given that the coming months see Aberfeldy release third single 'Love Is An Arrow', go off on a UK tour, appear at South By Southwest and play dates in Europe, you'd have thought they had better things to do tonight. But, being the loveable mob of folky indie sweeties that they are, they - and Edinburgh's pale indie cognoscenti - have somehow squeezed into the sardine can that is Avalanche record shop for a bit of a pre-tour shindig.
They treat us with an off-the-cuff, only slightly amplified eight-song set, and are as joyous, as ramshackle and as undeniably charming as they are on record. In fact, with the instruments arranged haphazrdly around the 7" racks, and everyone piled pretty much on top of each other, it's a fairly accurate recreation of how the album itself was recorded. No wonder they sound so much live like they do on record.
Essentially though, while Aberfeldy head honcho Riley Briggs tries gamely to pretend that this is really some sort of promotional exercise, it's nothing more than a bunch of like-minded folk hanging out and having some fun. "I love everyone / Everybody underneath the sun / I think you're all the most amazing fun" he sings for the first line of 'A Friend Like You', and it only gets happier from there on in. Capering through the country-and-casio chirp-fest that is 'Summer's Gone' and first single 'Vegetarian Restaurant' ("it was not a hit", sniffs Riley), there's a distinct danger of being grinned to death.
By the time we get to 'Tom Weir', which celebrates the affable presenter of Scottish Highland travel show Weir's Way, and which features a chorus built around the repetition of the word "anorak", the irony detectors have all exploded and everyone is content to take it all at its sugary-sweet face value. They end with a double whammy of the current single followed by all-round favourite 'Heliopolis By Night', and there is the distinct sense that while a six-year old with one good arm could take on this entire room in a fistfight and win comfortably, and while it's the most polite crush in the history of the world, this is in fact rock 'n' roll in its purest form - music by the people, for the people, and delivered unadulterated and straight to the people.
The band tucked in behind the sale rack might seem more Famous Five than Gang Of Four, but their infectious charm, their irrepressibly catchy songs, and their obvious talent makes them no less relevant than their more angular peers. But while the current crop of 80s-obsessed revivalists may sound the more contemporary, one suspects it will be Aberfeldy who will end up sounding classic.
