The Slow Readers Club, Live At O2 Apollo Manchester - album review
Mancunians The Slow Readers Club have released their third live album celebrating a triumphant hometown show last Christmas.
Live At O2 Apollo Manchester contains 20 tracks taken from across their three studio albums to date, including last year's Top 20-charting Build A Tower, as well as DVD footage of the show.
Praise was showered on the show in front of a sold out 3,500-capacity venue from all quarters, with Louder Than War Magazine even calling it a “career busting best”.
More coverage:
And while it is a decent record full of the hits which have made them a modern indie and post-punk success, if we are being super critical the first half of the record in particular doesn't seem to be worthy of such praise. Their shows are always good. The minimalistic approach and between-track chatter allow the music to do the talking. And we've seen one set at Stoke's Sugarmill absolutely blow the roof off.
But this show they have recorded doesn't quite match the explosive, raucous vibes of, say, Rage Against The Machine's Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in 2003 or the 2010 tour concerts Faithless sold to fans as they left arenas nationwide.
To use a football cliché, it's a double album of two halves (and literally of course).
On the first disc, they open with a lively but almost nervous rendition of Build A Tower opener Lunatic in which vocalist Aaron Starkie doesn't quite hit some of the high notes. But the crowd can be heard screaming almost every word back at him so must have been enjoying it.
Supernatural sounds good as it always does, and One More Minute bops along with its usual vigour.
And then it closes out the first 10 tracks with You Open Up My Heart - a song so majestic it can be played anywhere. Something happens here. The excitement turns up a notch and you can feel it come through the speakers towards you.
Then, it's go, go, go.
Plant The Seed sounds excellent, Lost Boys carries an agitated fervour and Cavalcade also sounds excellent.
They close, as always, with a rendition of On The TV throughout which the crowd can be heard roaring along to the guitar melody from Kurtis Starkie. As usual, they pause for the usual screeches of "RRREEEEEEAADEEEEERRRRSSS" before launching into one final refrain of that delicious guitar strip.
The highlights dotted throughout really are highlights.
Rating: 7/10
The Slow Readers club bring their winter tour to Wolverhampton's Slade Rooms on December 18
