Steph Brett, Miss Little, Howl at the Moon - The Empress

Steph Brett possesses a peculiar quality rarely found in singer-songwriters but one that delights and ensures an audience firmly on your side. Technically she is not brilliant, she fumbles chords, awkwardly plays with the microphone and even manages to pull the jack plate out of her guitar towards the end of her set. Un yet there is a vibrancy and character in her silky, caramel voice and personality, an understated charm that wins through every problem and technical hitch, as an example, to counter the lack of electrics in her guitar, the last song becomes acapella, with most of the audience providing hand claps for the duration.

Miss Little is an artist at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. She is slick, extremely well rehearsed, with a set of highly arranged material and obviously brimming with musical ability. She is just too spick and span, there seems to be a lack of feeling in her music, the set feels more like a tour through the various effects she can implement and utilise than an emotional journey. The vocoder, the loop station, the multiple keyboards all start to get a little dull and sadly the music drifts into the background.

Howl at the Moon live somewhere between the two support acts, they are certainly well rehearsed and after playing an abundance of shows in recent months, the band is a well-oiled machine. Howl at the Moon’s songs are full to bursting point with wonderful dynamics and arrangements, all instruments compliment each other superbly. Ladie Dee Supplies a bed of strumming full chords, her voice cutting clearly through, possessing pain, pleasure and experience in abundance, you feel and believe what she sings. Matt S peppers the solid chord bed with haunting guitar licks and melodies wether they be jagged, melodic, discordant, beautiful or somewhere in-between. Mark and Mike on bass and drums round of the illustrious package, providing a cohesive and rock-solid rhythm section, something hard to do in this genre of music, the temptation to be as Scuzzy and loose as the guitars and vocals. It’s a set the audience isn’t ready to finish, but sadly the restrictions of Friday night licensing draw proceedings to an early close and the venue empties after enjoying some truly great music.

Published in InPress