Music review: The Zutons

Published on Tuesday 6 May 2008 20:41

THE ZUTONS ****

ABC, GLASGOW

WITH a third album imminent, The Zutons' headline presence on MTV's Spanking New Music Tour spanks of misnomer. But Boyan Chowdhury's replacement by Paul Molloy on guitar has coincided with a harder edge to the quirky Liverpudlians' sound and they exhibited plenty of fresh verve this evening.

Opening with a rocky rendition of Zuton Fever, delivered like singer David McCabe's intention to infect hearts and minds, the rabble-rousing Hello Conscience brought in bassist Russell Pritchard and saxophonist Abi Harding for the first of many yelped, harmonised choruses.

The accusatory What's Your Problem? and singularly poppy Bumbag promised variety in the new material, but it was the bass crunch and "awoo" refrain of paranoiac rant Pressure Point that enlivened the crowd.

Dirty Rat was an atypically bluesy dirge that drifted into nothingness, necessitating the monster that is Valerie, the chugging guitar riff sounding novel after the ubiquity of Amy Winehouse's dancefloor filler, segueing into a brief burst of Railroad at the close.

Why Won't You Give Me Your Love? and the marching You Will You Won't culminated in extended jams, the former grinding to a messy finish, the latter morphing into a football chant, before Give Me A Reason emerged as the longest, heaviest, most ambitious track they've composed. The naggingly catchy upcoming single Always Right Behind You concluded the encore.