Nerina Pallot told her adoring audience that “we’ve been together nearly fourteen years my friends – that’s longer than I’ve been married”. This show was proof that, while the new material isn’t divorced from her previous albums, Pallot’s music has undergone a change.
The queue started early outside the doors of Scala. It was hardly surprising considering that this was a one-off show to promote the new album and this is an artist who inspires a loyal fan base that she is obviously keen to continually interact with and get feedback from.
The Sound And The Fury is Pallot’s fifth album and not only features new songs but also fan favourites from her twelve five-track EPs (released one each month in 2014) re-recorded with strings, additional musicians and more polished production. She’s half jokingly called it her “mid-life crisis album”. In reality it’s a bold shift in style that simultaneously reflects her roots whilst exploring new territory.
The apocalyptic drum beat of There Is A Drum hails the arrival of Pallot onto the stage and she launches into the set with a deep and bluesy vocal, complementing the almost threatening sound of strings and beats. This already feels like a real departure from the indie-pop and piano ballad labels that somehow always get associated with this often underrated artist.
Pallot says she is being indulgent by playing the album in its entirety, only peppering the set with back catalogue, but no-one in the room seems to care. They’ve had nearly a week with these songs and they’re happy to indulge her. Ain’t Got Anything Left is a soaring and sorrowful indie-pop track; fan favourite Rousseau has a thumping beat and catchy chorus that embeds itself in your head and sets up residence; If I Had A Girl perfectly dissects and puts under the microscope the inequalities faced by women through lyrics where Pallot imagines that she had a daughter instead of a son.
Sitting at the piano Pallot continues to captivate with Boy On The Bus, which builds to a crescendo whilst showing off her full and staggering vocal range, and the dramatic and raw Handle. Idaho takes us back to 2005’s Fires album and has her vocals riding on waves of keys that inevitably reminds me of Tori Amos. This song has the crowd singing along in perfect harmony and she explains that “any gig I do I guarantee you I will play that song. It’s like my personal manifesto”. She then plays a stripped-back Everybody’s Gone To War with just her vocal and the piano – another demonstration that she’s not afraid to change the arrangements of songs to ensure they make sense as part of this performance.
Away from the piano she plays the heart-warming, acoustic blues of Spirit Walks before going straight into Big White House – a big soul number that shows she can shift not only her songwriting approach but also her vocal style whilst remaining distinctively ‘her’. Blessed, like a lot of her lyrics, is moving (written about a woman who lost her son only days after he was born) whilst also never losing a melody that induces you to sing along with her.
We’re told that “Thursday’s the new Saturday” as we’re encouraged to dance and clap along to Put Your Hands Up, which I’m sure is an unavoidable side effect of just hearing that song. The Road is another one to dance to, although this time because of its dark, atmospheric and almost industrial layers of sound.
The encore begins with the soaring electro-classical soundscape of The Longest Memory before the beautiful English that, despite being one of her older songs, feels poignant considering current world events and the movement of people through Europe. The set ends with the beautiful Sophia as everyone raises their voices to sing along in a toast to a mesmerising performance.
Based on this show, Pallot’s new album represents anything but a crisis. The tales she weaves through her music, along with her beguiling stage presence and conversational chatter between songs brings me back to the feeling that she doesn’t get the attention she deserves.
She has the sound. She has just enough fury. She has me hooked.
Set list
There Is A Drum
Ain’t Got Anything Left
Rousseau
If I Had A Girl
Boy On The Bus
Handle
Idaho
Everybody’s Gone To War
Spirit Walks
Big White House
Blessed
Put Your Hands Up
The Road
Encore:
The Longest Memory
English
Sophia