Guillemots at Scala (30/05/06)

[my even more condensed review of this appeared on Planet Sound this week]!

I fall even more in love with Guillemots practically by the week at the moment. This show was presumably meant to be in promotion for their long-delayed album Through The Windowpane before it got moved back another month (Fyfe Dangerfield announces that they've just finally finished it before wryly suggesting that perhaps he'll destroy it all and start again) but instead they're still in the position of only having released a few singles.
It doesn't matter though because they have so many great songs and never, ever alienate or seem uninvolving or dull, even when showcasing two completely new songs as an encore. "Go Away" and "Sea Out", longstanding highlights of the live set, are as great as ever but aren't even on the album.
Even better, they have the ability to play everything differently each time so at the fifth viewing their older songs still seem fresh. Fyfe gets around problems with reproducing the recorded scale of "We're Here" by playing a solo acoustic version, "Trains To Brazil" gets a freaky white noise intro and "Made Up Love Song #43" is lovlier than ever in a wobbly music box form.
With four equally incredibly talented and enthusiastic band members, plus regular contributions from sax and one from (earlier pretty impressive in her own right) support act Joan As Policewoman there is always something to watch too, MC Lord Magrão's various typewriter/drill trickery and insistense on never playing his guitar in such a way that it sounds like a guitar particularly standing out.
They can already confidently play for over an hour and a half before concluding, in the second encore, with the hilariously enjoyable glam racket of "She's Evil" and never have a single moment that isn't fantastic - imagine what they'll be like a few years on!