When critics credit bands for exploring a more mature direction, it's often a sign that their edges have been smoothed out and big, glossy production has won out over ramshackle charm. Which, judging by Complete Surrender – Slow Club's epic, pop-baiting third album – would be the case were the songs not so smart, and the pair not so clearly relaxed in a sound always meant to be theirs: Northern Soul-flavoured, Beefheart-riffing anthems.
The voice of Rebecca Taylor, who has lungs built like parachutes, has always been bigger than the indie girl-boy duo template prescribes – it's huge yet unpretentious. Three songs in, she stops the room dead with Not Mine to Love, leaving even guest bassist, Fyfe Dangerfield (of Guillemots), standing still at the side of the stage, nodding in awe. Charles Watson introduces the set's anchor, Everything Is New, as "the one that we've been calling the new one for the last two and a half years". It's possibly the best thing the pair have written, Taylor bangs it out on drums while Watson gently teases out the story of "a barefoot girl, from a different age".
Slow Club's live progress has a lot of goodwill behind it, and there's a sense in the room that they've finally found their place. Gone are the days of frayed denim and heavy fringes, morphed as they have into a sleeker, glossy pop outfit. Songs such as Number One and Our Most Brilliant Friends are rattled through at a pace, whereas Suffering You, Suffering Me, from their current album, is so rousing it could be part of a set of familiar favourites.
Other new album highlight Wanderer, Wandering provokes a collective intake of breath towards the end as Taylor showcases an inordinate amount of control in her vocals. She sounds gutsy and bluesy, and just when you might have forgotten these two musicians didn't wander in from Muscle Shoals, Taylor pipes up with a thank you to her label "for taking a chance on two chubby teenagers from Rotherham". By the time they get to a sublime rendition of their new single, The Pieces, Slow Club prove they've paid off that gamble – and have finally broken out of the twee-pop mould.
• Slow Club: Complete Surrender review – powered by heartache and ambition
