Clever Hopes

Matthew Barber plays a kind of low-lying blues. He jams quietly, with a lot of restraint. His sparse band, comprised of only drums and keyboard tap away in the periphery. They’re incredibly tight. It seems there’s a lot going on we can’t see. They just continue through the first verse of Come Back Baby with their muted fastidiousness. This is what happens before the sound opens up, as though someone has pulled away the partisan and the licks and the chords fill the room.

He’s a blues fan at heart but, bloody bejeezus, he knows how to write a good pop tune. The chorus to Come Back Baby is so sphincter-winkingly catchy that half the room looks as though they’ve just had kittens. It really kicks off after that first verse, with keyboard and harmonica bits prancing together like gleeful musical puppies, but the band are still as tight as Topshop meggings.

The whole of Big Romance, Barber’s 8th studio album, has this kind of premeditation about it. It’s never too effusive or ostentatious. He has come to own cool and collected as his schtick.