London Grammar
Add a cello to practically anything and its amazingness will multiply.
Add an entire string quartet to a London Grammar set and your mind will be absolutely blown.
It was a very, very good move on the part of the ever so elusive trio: vocalist Hannah Reid, angular fellow founder Dan Rothman on guitar (the pair met in halls at Nottingham University), and Dot Major (recruited from the year below), he with the scatty mop of hair, on keys, drums and the djembe.
Compared to the likes of Adele, Joni Mitchell and Florence Welch, it’s Hannah’s voice, arcing powerfully over the sparing backdrop of keys, guitar and the bare bones of percussion on their debut album If You Wait, that make them.
But with a string quartet at a thrumming, packed out Cambridge Corn Exchange, they marched into the kind of territory you can only mark as indescribably stunning.
And, for a band that shies from the media and is fronted by a dangerously nervous singer, they weren’t nearly as cold and remote as we’d prepared for. You can’t quite call them charismatic, but they do nail an effortless cool that doesn’t spill into stand-offish.
The boys loped on stage before Hannah appeared enigmatic, still, quiet and understated, hands clasped as if in prayer, her trademark hank of a blonde high ponytail barely swishing.
Matched note for note by a blazing backdrop that sputtered and popped with brightness, haloing Hannah in a rush of shadow and sparks, the favourites were achingly good: the lacerating Wasting My Young Years, skin-shivery Strong (“Feel free to sing-a-long,” Hannah murmured) and Hey Now, and some tracks that fade sweetly out of your mind on the album, live, just exploded (namely Flickers).
But with barely more than 10 songs in their arsenal – to be fair, their music career has spun out of control in the space of a year, you couldn’t expect the song-count to keep up – the set raced upsettingly by.
Still, their tremulous cover of Kavinsky’s Nightcall (best known for soundtracking Ryan Gosling’s scorpion emblazoned hero in Drive), seemed to drag out time, wringing the heart out of every single burning note while the strings skipped on and off stage, sawing through the haunting tendrils of Sights.
They finished on Metal & Dust: it soared, it smouldered and it left you reeling.
First published by the Cambridge News.
Ribbon and Rope 