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Goldheart Assembly at Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds

Goldheart Assembly

London five piece Goldheart Assembly have come to say Hello as they set up in the Nation of Shopkeeper on a Sunday afternoon. Roast beef dinners are served and the beer is passable so wasting an afternoon before the gig seems aimless fun.

The band are a fine bunch of lads - committed to their music and passionate about it - the sit in turns and chat about their Wolves And Thieves album and the horrors of half a dozen lads in a transit van. "If it is Tuesday then this must be Nottingham..."

Few bands are more worth pointing a person in the direction of than Goldheart Assembly making - as they do - a difference to a person's collection and coming from a set of influences which edge to a timeless quality. They give a breadth to your iPod.

Tonight they are in equal measure studious and passionate. They aim high and in songs like So Long St Christopher and King of Rome achieve it and when they do they inspire you to listen to more things, to rifle through a vinyl shop for some Gram Parsons, to expand your music.

No bad thing.

Goldheart Assembly at The Live Lounge, Blackburn

Each member of five piece Goldheart Assembly look as if they have dropped out of being the coolest dressed man of a specific time period other than a quiet Saturday night in Blackburn. They sound out of time too too mixing a bit of pure pop with some Seventies Americana but this is Lancashire on a weekend night, Oasis are playing in a massive field twenty minutes down the road and the audience at the excellent newly opened Live Lounge is sparse.

Goldheart Assembly are "London's Fleet Foxes" of course because anyone who strums an acoustic is the Fleet Foxes of somewhere but the band wear the comparison well and march through the opening numbers impressively building a big sound, loud and whittled from stone.

They weave narratives through their songs in the finest traditions of storytelling bands and the collection of touchstones like Fleet Foxes and Big Star are valid. R.E.M. circa Reckoning might be another.

The locals are impressed proclaiming them the best band to have played a Blackburn pub for some time – makes a break from counting holes one supposes - and Goldheart Assembly kick up a notch with the more up tempo Row Sixteen. They show an impressive range of work – perhaps a result of being in essence two rival bands who merged. Perhaps that is why Blackburn and A Day In The Life seem fitting.

The old Americana is punctured by a high Cockney accent and more echo is added to vocal which is already the rich sound is so drenched in reverb. They sound best when harmonising and which is not the case on Oh Really! Which is not their best but is catchy recalling The Animals. It is 79p - we are told - and buying it will enable them to fill the tour bus for tomorrow's trip to Middlesbrough. From Whitehaven to Blackburn to Middlesbrough the band are paying dues in the provinces, sharpening a style which will stand them in good stead.

They finish with a slice of sixties pop that you know to dance to but struggle to recall a name for but not after taking a request from "anyone who has come down just to see us" and the request is for single So Long, St Christopher which is a gem rough around the edges but pure and heartfelt and enthralling at the core.

It encapsulates the band.