Gig review: Dog Is Dead, Glasgow

“Wow,” noted singer Robert Milton in a transatlantic drawl that started out in his home city of Nottingham, “there’s so much more of you than last time, which is really super mega cool.”

King Tut’s

***

It wasn’t packed in King Tut’s by any means, but the sizeable crowd seemed enthused by the cheery hyperbole, which also found its way into the music.

The young quintet feel both like a band who have been designed to appear on far bigger stages than this. As Milton noted, they seem to be taking the slow-burn route to getting there, what with the fact that last year’s debut album All Our Favourite Stories didn’t crack the top 40, but they appear to remain focused – “we released it, how cool is that?” whooped the singer of his record. The audience seemed in agreement, responding positively to the saxophone and throbbing bass-led Any Movement, and the joyous irreverence of Two Devils (its key “if we don’t stop now we’ll be dead by summer” line was hollered back at them).

They’re one of those groups whose lack of originality was offset by a capable way with a crisp, voguish pop song, Milton’s tarnished angel voice a confident highlight of a sound that ebbed through the vaguely skanking ballad Get Low and the hyperactive indie-rock of River Jordan. Where there were resounding negatives – a familiar over-imitation of Vampire Weekend, for example, or the clunking unsubtlety of new song title I’d Never Hit You Back – we can probably put it down to youth and inexperience.