With the imminent launch of their seventh album Out Of A Dream, The Slow Readers Club have taken to the campaign trail this weekend with a couple of intimate preview shows, performing the album plus selected back catalogue highlights in full. On Sunday night they played a hometown show at Gorilla revealing the ten new songs from the record to a loyal and dedicated fanbase.
"It's a long time since we've played so many new songs" Aaron Starkie tells us around half way through the ten songs that make up Out Of A Dream, that looks set to mark a renaissance for the band if the reception to the singles from it are anything to go by. These shows form part of that campaign linked to a purchase of the album that's released in a couple of weeks and a chance to hear the songs for the first time live in a room full of other fans.
They play the album in order so they start with the familiar - lead singles Technofear and Animals open the record and what's immediately clear is the lift and power they give the songs live, aided by simple but strong lighting that follows the music. Gorilla's sound can often be muddy but tonight it has a clarity that allows us to hear everything in the songs.
The unfamiliar songs get a very positive reaction although there's none of the typical bouncing around you'd associate with a Slow Readers Club gig these days as people listen intently to songs they're hearing for the first time. Little White Lies, which some will have heard on the December tour, slows things down a little and shows just how the band can vary the pace of the song, allow Aaron Starkie's vocals to exude real emotion at more mellow intensity as the song builds. Dear Silence takes things back up a notch and is sure to be a fan favourite once they take this album out on the road. Know This I Am delights those who love The Slow Readers Club's knack of a song that builds dramatically in the verses to a big chorus, something they do so well yet here find a different way of approaching it.
After a short pause where we "turn the record over" The Slow Readers Club perform Boy So Blue, the most recent track to be taken from the album in the pre-release promo phase. A dancefloor filler with huge synth hooks that would sit perfectly as a sync on TV sports coverage, the song shows them at their most ambitious and live, it allows the real beauty and emotional depth of Aaron's vocals to shine through. It's followed by Pirouette, our favourite off the album, a fast punchy song that aims for the jugular and hits every time and is another destined to be a live favourite. The politically charged Puppets isn't as immediate but still gets a very positive response from the mostly receptive crowd.
The Out Of A Dream section of the evening comes to a close with the bold uplifting Loved You Then and the dramatic Our Song Is Sung which follows in the fine tradition of epic build closing songs on The Slow Readers Club albums. Aaron jokes they don't do wedding songs but says this one could be used as a divorce song.
The night's topped off by a six-song journey taking a track from each of their previous studio albums - a clever way of stripping down their massive selection of big anthems into a manageable form for a show like this. Feet On Fire, from their self-titled debut, immediately gets the audience going, the chattering couples near us shut up for the first time all night and people start to dance to the familiar. All I Hear from their top 10 album The Joy Of The Return, turns up the dial on the atmosphere still further before a sonically imposing Everything I Own from their lockdown album 91 Days In Isolation.
They finish with a trio that send the five hundred fans out into the night buzzing. Afterlife, from their last album Knowledge Freedom Power, is the finest song they've ever released and grows more epic and uplifting with age and the roar at the end of it shows just how much their audience have taken it to heart. Forever In Your Debt might be twelve years old and Cavalcade the album it comes from turning ten this year (causing Aaron to hint at celebrations later in the year), but it still sounds fresher and more invigorating as anything that more celebrated bands of this genre are turning out. They finish with the mighty stomp of Lunatic, the breakthrough track from their breakthrough album Build A Tower and most of the crowd raise their arm to the sky to mimic Aaron's motions as it hits the chorus.
The night is about Out Of A Dream though. Two weeks from release, it's the first time most of the crowd will have heard at least half of the songs from it. The hugely positive response tells its own story as to where the album might sit in the band's impressive catalogue once it sees the light of day and benefits from familiarity.
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