Wrexham Central Station, 28 May 2009

My Latest Novel

With such an interesting and varied line-up I was disappointing to see so few arrive to see one of my favourite UK bands, My Latest Novel. With no less than two highly acclaimed albums released in less than three years it was also surprising to find the band leading off the show against two other bands who have yet to release albums… My Latest Novel is a Scottish five-piece band from the Greenock in Scotland. Their style is somewhere between indie rock and folk pop but neither genres describe their sound exactly. With British commercial radio reluctant to play anything over 5 minutes long, and slavishly following BBC’s very mainstream play-list lead, My Latest Novel still remains relatively unknown over here. It’s criminal because amongst UK bands this one stands head and shoulder for originality and quality.

My Latest Novel are Chris Deveney (vocals, guitar, bass), Gary Deveney (vocals, guitar), Paul McGeachey (vocals, guitar, xlophone), Laura McFarlane (vocals, violin, piano), and Ryan King (percussion).

With acoustics totally unsuited to the band’s sound and especially the vocals, the band made a huge fist of playing songs from the new album (DEATHS AND ENTRANCES), and inspiring an audience to enthusiastically reward each and every song played. Opening with the first track from DEATHS AND ENTRANCES, ‘All In All In All Is All’, it was noticeable that vocals sounded tinny and far from great. But the song’s beauty and ambience survived. ‘Dragonfly’ sounded a tad better and by the third song, ‘Lacklustre’, it seemed that sound desk adjustments had partially fixed the problem.

There’s a live performance subtlety to the band; there’s no histrionics, little animation. However, every beautifully crafted song is performed passionately where instruments, solo vocals and vocal harmonies come together with such emotional power. Given a suitable acoustic environment I would have rated this 40-minute show the finest I have seen this year (and I’ve seen a few…). Certainly it was amongst the best and one only had to listen to the loud applause from an audience of (largely) strangers to understand just how good this band and its songs are.