CLUBLAND!

ALLO DARLIN', THE WAVE PICTURES, ADVENTURE GALLEY 
(May 10, 2012, Mississippi Studios)

There was a period there, fifteen twenty years ago, when you'd go out to a club to see a favorite band and tacked to the bottom of the bill would be an afterthought, filler. Most often you'd arrive a bit late in order to miss them. Those days seem to be over. Nowadays, arrive late, miss out.

Though indeed local, Adventure Galley are anything but filler. Sporting smart synthy overtones supported by a throbbing catch of New Order-y bass and snappy epileptically precise drumming, they both plunge and soar into their set, christened by generous dollops of glitter applied first thing by the guy behind the Roland, a ritual that would be observed throughout their set (though able to track down names later on their facebook page, those names - David Aaron George Jesse Forrest and Brock - were not attached to instruments). Regardless of the fact that it's the troika of synths up there that catches the eye, this lot is as much a guitar band as Interpol, their sound similarly hynotic though brighter, more openly melodic. Hell, the third song of the set (song titles were unforthcoming), an alternately brooding/popping ramalama, has every member but two - drummer and lone keyboardist - gripping a guitar neck of some kind. Seeing as how song after song carries a brace of well-worn, exceedingly well-done pop tropes - isolated harmony bits, woo-hoo-hoos and the like, not to mention catchy-as-catchy-gets progressions - Adventure Galley rank as a singles band, which is to say a band marvelously out of time. Though lacking quite the zaniness factor (and, frankly, Tim Finn's vocal prowess), one is reminded rather fetchingly of Split Enz. Seemingly effortless pop suss, a brace of 45-ready songs, a streak of irreverence and a crowded stage (six of 'em shoe-horned up there). All's that's missing is the crazed sartorial sense, but what the heck, we'll let the glitter stand in for that.

First thing you notice about The Wave Pictures tonight? They have a lot more room on stage. A 3-piece from Wymeswold, a tiny village smack in the center of England (pop. 1000), they're finally starting to get the attention they've deserved for a while now. Next thing noticed? This is a band for whom lyrics are an integral, finely-honed element. Turns of phrase turn over each other ("Once you wrote your name in peppercorns, poured out on the table"), there's no throwaway here. Helps too that the songs keep pace musically. Dave Tattersall's Gibson playing has this clean swinging authority, the solos rolling off with the clarity of marbles bouncing off the neck with genius precision. Can't overemphasize how nice it is to hear those delicious Gibsonian tones in a straightforward rock context again. Equally refreshing? Seeing the small knot of people whooping it up dancing next to the stage, not so much square-dancing as trapezoid-dancing, which, given the XTCish zest for wordplay yoked to something akin to driving barndance British guitar indie, comes as no surprise. Third song "Seagulls" (off new LP Long Black Cars just released on Moshi Moshi) has a rousing hoedown zing to it that establishes beyond any doubt that the trophy for dextrous playfulness wedded to hopalong songcraft goes to...(envelope please) The Wave Pictures! I'd not seen nor heard them before today (youtube-ing in preparation) but I'll be walking out of here tonight with The Wave Pictures as one of my favorite discoveries of 2012.

Allo Darlin' jump right into with with new song "Barren," as misnamed a song as you'll ever hear, beginning with spirited staccato handclaps and bursting into joy with a shameless abandon, singer Elizabeth Morris chipping away at her baby ukelele like it's a lifeline, and in fact she never lets go of the thing the entire set with the exception of "Capricornia" and "Wonderland." Regardless, we are immediately in boisterously capable hands and it's a pretty safe bet that we'll be smiling a lot tonight. "If Loneliness Were Art," the follow-up (from 2010 self-titled debut), is reggae funk pop (get your head around that for a sec) and we're all in its thrall. Certainly a key to a memorable night at the club is when the band are enjoying themselves as much (or more) than the audience and such is the case tonight. By fourth song "Europe" (title song off latest Slumberland-released LP), I already can't believe how good a time I'm having. Live, the songs off the album come so, well, alive. Allo Darlin' are the kind of spastic wonderful that makes you simply glad to have been born. 

The band's style is such that they occasionally slip into idyl, as in "Let's Go Swimming," a mid-set pacesetter that serves to solidify the band's status as effortless popmeisters a la, say, Orange Juice. Which is a fine moment to pause and address the 'twee' issue. If irresistibly melodic, relentless pop gems like these qualify as twee then Allo Darlin' are twee. But I'd argue there's far too much rhythmic muscularity inside each of these song's structures to merit what is generally considered an unflattering adjective.

"Wonderland" is a perfect example. Beginning all jangly and sweet, it soon enough leaps into a blossomed chug of a groove that puts paid to such critical laziness. And really, if anything should guarantee 'tweeness' it would be a song anchored by the ukelele and Morris's voice alone. But "Tallulah," off Europe, is one of the night's standout offerings, projected with a fierce honesty that you'd question at your own peril. It details that odd kind of happy loneliness when you're away from the place you're comfortable in (both geographic and otherwise) but are nonetheless thrilled to be where you are and boasts the delicious lyric "so I sent you a postcard from Berlin/of a fat man eating a sausage/ hid the fact I was hiding/ as the DJ played another terrible song." Needless to say, it's a literate night.

"Woody Allen," a song request emailed to them that they're only too happy to oblige, is a signature interlude in the set. With its kind of aggressive C-86 beat, its rather plaintive subject matter and its blink-and-you-miss-it length, it's this band to a T, at least til the next song starts. "Still Young" (also off Europe) encapsulates everything in Allo Darlin's insinuous pop-wizardry: sprightly beat, wry lyrics, a jangling and abiding confidence.

Final song "My Heart Is A Drummer" builds into an incessant groove that guarantees a clamor for an encore, which, of course, we get, with the pixie-ish singer again alone with her ukelele, somehow soft and achingly sharp at the same time. It's spellbinding to see the stage commanded so simply via devotion and belief in craft and a voice that's half a child's dreamy soprano, all glassine and innocent, half a wistful, very adult, knowingness. Just before their absolutely final song of the night, we find out it's Ms Morris's birthday and the expected roar goes up but I for one am left feeling a bit awkward. I mean, here it's her birthday and yet Allo Darlin' have been showering us with gifts for well over an hour like it's our birthday. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty apt description of how it felt seeing this band, as I swept out the door and back to my car with just the type of effervescent jubilation I might feel if I'd just been celebrating my birthday. Almost seems as if I should send the band a Thank You card.