The Nightingales

Nice N’ Sleazy, Glasgow

4 stars
The Jubilee-tastic Punk Britannia celebrations may be reminding the 
world of the spirit of 77’s snotty year zero aesthetic, but it arguably 
misses a trick in terms of what happened next beyond assorted turn-coat 
rock stars and cause celebres. Take The Nightingales, Robert Lloyd’s 
reignited vehicle for his unique form of back-street Black Country beat 
poetry set to a wilfully Luddite garage-band racket.

Formed out of the ashes of Birmingham’s first ever punk band, The 
Prefects, Lloyd and co’s relentlessly literate yarns of urban absurdism 
soundtracked a fistful of John Peel sessions that were only second to 
fellow travellers The Fall in number. Back in the saddle since 2004, 
and featuring original Prefects guitarist Alan Apperley alongside a disparate 
trio of relative youngsters, The Nightingales have now released more 
records than their 1980s incarnation.

Much of tonight’s set is taken from the just-released No Love Lost 
album, with a bespectacled and besuited Lloyd launching into Ace of 
Hearts without fuss, or indeed any acknowledgement of the audience. As 
a succession of narrative vignettes segue into each other with no room 
for applause, Lloyd remains stoically deadpan, kneeling on his haunches 
during extended Anglo-German Prog thrashings that pound out behind him.

These are rattled out by the counterpointing guitars of Apperley and 
newbie Matt Wood, whose long hair and ‘tache gives him the air of 1972 
Dusseldorf that goes beyond his band’s associations with Faust via 
bassist and studio technician Andreas Schmid. Elsewhere, drummer Fliss 
Kitson’s backing vocals and percussive invention lend a jauntiness to a 
sound  that suggests a parallel universe working men’s club culture. 
England’s dreaming indeed.

The Herald, June 7th 2012

ends