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Jens Lekman at Trinity Church, Leeds

There is an A-Board outside an urban church in the middle of Leeds City centre opposite a barbers shop that charges three times the cost of a ticket for this evening's entertainment for a short back and sides and time passes in fashionable bars waiting for the doors of the church to open.

The A-Board reads: "Tonight Jens Lekman" and tonight can never be as good as one hopes it will be.

Swedish songster Lekman is playing just two headline shows in the UK - one in London and another here at Trinity Church - and while the capital may offer a venue or two this religious venue seems to suit the man who is so unassuming that when he approaches the stage - the alter - that he is mistaken for a guitar technician.

Out of the neon and black night of the middle of Leeds dodging tieless smart suit wearing people enjoying a Liverpool game after work the queue for the Trinity files orderly into the church selecting seats on pews. I'm struck by how long it has been since I went to church - I'm Catholic - and start to wonder if should he play Black Cab would the lines "Oh No, God Damn" be included.

Lekman is a slight fellow and he stumbles to the area in front of the alter as a general mumbling pervades the room. He begins to strum a guitar and soon forms a tune and mumbles drop to silence and in the heart of this plastic City there is an outbreak of honesty.

Jens Lekman, a guitar, later a percussionist and an hour or so of pooled honesty.

Drawing mostly from his recent release Night Falls Over Kortedala Lekman comes over as a thin voiced raconteur picking out stripped down versions of his compositions and detailing them with additions. Postcard To Nina comes with a good few minutes extra storytelling and one half of the audience laugh madly while the other have a hushed reverence and both are appropriate.

Postcard To Nina comes after Lekman has won the crowd - the converted - following his steadily acoustic And I Remember Every Kiss and the meaningfully bitter Black Cab that formulates into a long moment this reviewer will live his whole life without forgetting.

There is a personal significance Black Cab for me - Michael Wood - and suddenly I am struck by how Jens's twee edged tunes are to be taken to heart. The refrain of Black Cab - "You don't know anything/So don't ask me any questions/Just turn the music up/And keep your mouth shut." - sits carved in my heart in a way that only the most honest, truthful stories can be. Into Eternity - which also gets played tonight - swells into my life in similar ways.

It is honest music. It is music not to like but to love.

An overlong version of Sherin risks losing a doe eyed audience but a melee of priceless songs surround it - The Cold Swedish Winter has a brilliant insert about Cliff Richard(s) and I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You breaks every heart - and when Lekman departs his return is demanded.

An encore covers party song A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill - the clear refrain "I still remember Regulate by Warren G/It was in the summer of 1993/On Hammer Hill" is to die for - and after three songs the Swede takes a richly deserved bow before casting his eye past the pulpit. "I could play the organ for you, most of you won't be able to see me."

And he plays Tram #7 To Heaven and it is beautiful in the way that nothing else in this soulless metropolis can be. The piped sound of an organ drifts away into the night as soon will Lekman and his audience - his devotees - but the experience fills a flickering heart and keeps it warm on the way home.

Sky Larkin', White Light Parade, Buffalo 77 Granadaland at The Love Apple, Bradford

Sky Larkin' suggest perfect pop. Perhaps it is the lacking a G to remind one of 1980s Video Game classic loopin' or perhaps it is the air of Sarah Records around the band but their name at the top of this evening's Granadaland bill is an indication of type.

On the undercard were to be The Sugars - modern Boo-Wop kids that they are - but like Rooney injury has ruled them out and so the slimmed down bill begins with the pseudo-Americana stylings of Buffalo 77.

Coming from the Midlands Buffalo 77 are a bassless three piece and very pleasantly they aurally harkens back to the early 1990s 4AD doodlings. It is simple and melancholic and all the better for it with the noir three's lead singer Jay Leighton's musing vocal complemented by a twiddlesome keyboard.

The wheel is not reinvented but the motion is good and the three have an impressive presence on stage. Avalanche is the stand out moment closing the set "Mid-October and I'll start it up again/It's not over but it is almost at an end/please, why do you have to say that?" is typical of the soothing lyricalisms and the night is started well with something like pop but of a more fracture type.

White Light Parade are approaching fixture status in the Bradford music scene but markedly improve to a point where they push past support slots and onto bigger and better which will surely come with the release of debut single Wait For The Weekend in December which - when played tonight - is greeted with an insane boogie by three of the more loyal followers. They are a band who should inspire loyalty with their swaggering attitude of ebullience which fits the cold Friday night in Bradford and lifts all listening. Musically they are tight with the brothers Danny and Johnno Yates complementing each other's picked out guitar work riffing off each other until Johnno's strings meet microphone finale.

Comparisons are easy and obvious but there is a glistening of originality in songs like Turn The Lights Down "Six O'Clock/I've been locked up/But I just want to go home." It is a craving for Liberty rather than a stealing of it.

Sky Larkin' cannot match the pace of WLP and come over a little more shambolic and less driven than the previous act. Vocally they sink under a fuzz of guitar - and not in that cool Steve Albini way - and lack a projection.

Which is not to say that they are not entertaining - they are - but that they seem unsure as to which direction they want to take you. Are they perfect pop or rough and ready? They play a couple of new songs and appreciate the friendly atmosphere of the Love Apple more than the previous night's Club NME crowd and the Love Apple responds with hearty applause but one is left confused and wanting to hear more of the melody of Buffalo '77 or the swagger of White Light Parade.

The night ebbs away pleasantly into the cold Bradford sky. Buffalo 77 are sombre, White Light Parade serious and Sky Larkin' a little sillier. All present pop of a sort and perfection is always something to strive for rather than achieve.

fourteencorners, Le Tournoi at PM Bar, Shipley

William from Le Tournoi is not happy with his set. "It was awful", he intones afterwards, "It was not good."There is a aura in PM Bar in Shipley that seems to scream teenage birthday party. The split of the room, the way the age groups follow that, the smokeless air of a post July 2007 pub for a while one looks around for something to wrap up and give as a present in case the birthday girl arrives. She never does but a guy who looks a lot like Shakin' Stevens soulfully sits in the corner and leaves before the bands come on.

Le Tournoi will not be pleased with the set that starts with two muted bangs of a microphone and they struggle to project through the room. The family Sanderson are the curio of Bradford's music scene and are rough edged parts of jigsaws pushed together in a way that makes pleasing and often amusing shapes. The more powerful melodies of Christmas Eve sound excellent tonight but Some Murder Perhaps is lost in the balance as lyrical subtleties are lost.

William is not pleased and certainly Le Tournoi have less impact that when last they were seen but the lack of shine is easily and often a facet of the band and they are no worse for it. Most of these songs will be played better than they were tonight but the randomness is a part of the charm and there is much charm.

If fourteencorners do not have the charm of Le Tournoi - and some may successful argue they do - they make up for it with a technical excellent which sees their sound project throughout the room tonight. They effortlessly run through We Are Pathetic! We Are Stars! and pour passion into The Walk Home and if this gig is a warm up for the Piece Hall in Halifax this weekend then they are definitely warm.