Gig review: The Nightingales

IT'S not a major claim to fame, but standing second only to the Fall in terms of the amount of John Peel Sessions they've played means that – in the eyes of a fortysomething and largely male, largely alternative crowd, at least – Birmingham's Nightingales might as well be the Rolling Stones. That history and the UK rock canon seem to have passed them by is a dispiriting state of affairs.

Still, those of us in attendance here were the lucky ones. The 2011 Nightingales vintage features singer Robert Lloyd, guitarist Alan Apperley of Nightingales precursors the Prefects, and three musicians – guitarist Matt Wood, bassist Andreas Schmid and drummer Fliss Kitson – who don't look like they were born when this group emerged in 1979. The combination of youthful fire and Lloyd's grouchy old geezer persona made for a set with real personality. Suited, bespectacled and with the air of the teacher everyone knew not to mess with at school, Lloyd wasn't as cantankerous as the Fall's Mark E Smith, although his insistence that one chatterbox "****ing shut the **** up" was the kind of thing most singers probably wish they had the guts to do.

Although often lost amidst the wash of jazz-shaped discord, battering beat group stomps, primal new wave and psychedelic interludes during tracks like Wot No Blog? and Workshy Wunderkind, Lloyd's lyrics were the highlight of this set. They painted bleak but vivid pictures alongside a drumbeat battering down like rain during Born Again in Birmingham, their anger and humour the main argument for this band claiming the credit they're long overdue.