Gig review: The Staves, Pleasance, Edinburgh

Apparently, it’s easier opening for Bon Iver at venues the size of the SECC than it is headlining your own show in a small but packed Pleasance Theatre.

So say Watford sisters the Staves, because it’s “not so daunting when you’re the support band – as long as you’re not completely sh*t and you say your band’s name lots of times.”

On paper there’s no mistaking the fact that these young women – Jessica, Emily and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, with a two-part male rhythm section on the live stage – are pretty much pre-ordained for success, having released their debut album Dead & Born & Grown on Atlantic Records with production from revered father-and-son studio dynasty Glyn and Ethan Johns. Yet their live set was modest, an often whisper-soft combination of Jessica’s guitar, Camilla’s ukulele and Emily’s tenderly-squeezed shruti box over the finest instruments on display here – three clear, sharp voices which wove delicately in and out of one another in effortlessly pleasing harmony.

These were songs which sank into the heart through a combination of low-key musical accomplishment and clear, emotive lyrical sentiment; for example, Snow’s subtly devastating “I am weak and I am selfish / you are but a guest in my heart” opening couplet or the literal and metaphorical warmth evoked by Eagle Song’s rising harmony on the phrase “Blankets wrapped around us”.

The album’s title track was a minimal acoustic folk mantra in the style of Nick Drake, and the closing Winter Trees hinted at greater power held in reserve. Fame will suit them when it comes.

* * * *