On record, Other Lives have a spectacularly luscious and vivid sound: almost every rave review of their second album, Tamer Animals, reached for the adjective "cinematic" to describe the richness of its arrangements. It's remarkable stuff that you suspect will ultimately reach a far wider audience than the small crowd huddled around Audio's tiny stage tonight, but it's also the kind of album that makes you wonder how on earth the Oklahoma quintet propose to reproduce it live.
As they wander unassumingly on stage – they clearly share not only something of Fleet Foxes' vocal harmonies but also their rigorous approach to personal grooming – the answer becomes immediately apparent: by a fairly remarkable display of multi-tasking. The drummer carries a clarinet. The opening number alone requires Josh Onstott to switch between guitar, trumpet and violin. Over at the other side of the stage, Jenny Hsu variously plays keyboards, glockenspiel, cello, what looks like a dulcimer and what appears to be a selection of antlers with bells attached.
On the one hand, it occasionally looks like some kind of world-record attempt. On the other, the overall effect is astonishing. It's not so much that they recreate the album's sound live, but that they actually increase its power. Frontman Jesse Tabish's voice sounds stronger than on record, as resonant and careworn as their melodies. The fact that their songs draw on a far wider range of sources than the folky Americana they tend to be lumped in with becomes more apparent, as does their similarity to Tabish's favourites Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Old Statues is rooted equally in Ennio Morricone's spaghetti-western soundtracks and the melodramatic mid-60s pop arrangements of Gene Pitney: tonight, the song suddenly achieves a kind of vertical takeoff midway through: surging and surging upwards. In response, the audience achieve a kind of vertical takeoff, too: previously respectfully enthusiastic, they go nuts, which seems to catch Tabish off guard. He mutters something about the support act being better than them, and how Other Lives need to practise more. With the best will in the world, it really doesn't sound like it.
