King's Place
5 September 2009
The Leisure Society look very clean, and polite, and are charming on stage. Funny asides are likely to come from Slightly Cheeky Christian, and at Green Man singer Nick Hemming speculated, after having seen Messrs Rossen, Droste & co backstage, on "how great it must be to be in a band that is more amazing than an actual Grizzly Bear".
Well I laughed, anyway.
They wear nice clothes, as if they are going to tea with mum later, sing with nice clear voices, and have a flute, uke, glock and string section in their armoury. Helpfully, they also have really lovely songs - no but REALLY lovely, earning, and deserving, compliments from a lot of the good Guys, including Garvey.
The aforementioned lovely songs feature gentle lilting melodies, occasionally with a slight wistful twang, some judicious borrowings from other folk music cultures for a bit of spice, and with witty and elegant, softly spoken arrangements that explore and make intelligent use of the available options.
At times they are almost capturing the spirit of the Penguin Cafe; often mentioned as an influence by a certain type of musician, I can't think of any other act that achieves similar qualities - and unfortunately that includes the current incarnation of Penguins, led by Arthur Jeffes, son of - so for what it's worth, that is high praise indeed.
Watching The Leisure Society is like having a cuddle; and so it was at King's Place yesterday.
Video below may or may not stay once Ulla has sent me those pics. :-)
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