Gig review: Frankie Rose, Captain’s Rest, Glasgow

FRANKIE Rose is something of a girl-group veteran – not of your Saturdays brand of performing seals, but of hipster US femme pop outfits Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls, who combine an infectious melodic ear with scuzzy garage pop backing. She left both bands when they were on the cusp of success, went on to drum with the darker, more esoteric New York band Crystal Stilts and quit to front her own group, Frankie Rose & the Outs.

Now even the Outs name has gone, though some members remain in her backing band. But far from coming across as a flighty character, Rose appeared to be a centred performer – quite literally in the way she rooted herself to the stage, staring down the spotlight with a fixed, serious expression on her face, before loosening up between songs to talk about her favourite subject, food.

Her music is lithe and natural, landing somewhere between the pure pop instincts of the Go-Gos and the off-kilter post-punk rhythms of the Raincoats. As well as her expressive, girlish voice, Rose contributed clear, resonant guitar melodies and traded subtle vocal harmonies with her keyboard player – this must be what Rose has referred to as her “Enya vibes”, though she may have overstated the New Age influence on her new album, Interstellar, which is often more flinty than floaty.

Boys are now allowed into the club (they were never actually excluded), her coiled spring of a drummer often setting the hectic pace for lift-off. A suitably atmospheric cover of the Cure’s A Forest sat comfortably in the set, which was rounded off with the graceful, freewheeling title track of Interstellar.

Rating: ***