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2:54 supporting She Keep Bees at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

She Keeps Bees

She Keeps Bees are going to spend their days as an acquired taste.

Which is not a criticism of Jessica Larrabee and Andy LaPlant's band who combine the starkness of a drum guitar combination with a set of lyrics that talk of a kind of sharp distress which is fascinating but it is because of that snarkness that they will never be a radio favourite, even amongst the sort of people who loved PJ Harvey records who surely must see them as a very close cousin.

The world of She Keeps Bees is a slightly troubling one - at contrast to Jessica's amused banter between songs - but all the better for it. My second visit and the place gets more interesting.

2:54

Instantly interesting though are support 2:54. A pair of sisters from London who take their names from their favourite part of a Melvins song they muse onto stage with a thick smoke and set alight the buzz of heavily distorted guitars.

They make a music drenched in itself. Feedback to the point of constant fuzz with a hook or a solo sitting atop the noise and a vocal that weaves in and out of the forest of sound it is impossible to not mention My Bloody Valentine and Blonde Redhead but even on first listen there is so much more going on than a band wearing a reference on its sleeve.

Creeping builds a song by layers, it drills into the head, On A Wire has a woozy, lazy cool about it. Rumour has it this is the band's first set of dates, they return to West Yorkshire for Live At Leeds in May and they are very worth stopping what you are doing to listen.

Loose Talk Cost Lives supported by Delta Sleep, Wot Gorilla? and Buen Chico. at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Who headlines a Sunday night gig? Ostensibly one of the bands is on last but on last means on after people have wandered away for last buses and to be up for work in the morning.

Buen Chico

Perhaps this accounts for the generally mixed bag feel of Sunday night gigs and the unevenness of the evening. I'm hear to see Buen Chico and they are first up.

Stacking up four newer tracks Buen Chico offer something of a split set. The older work is more raw and battered out of the trio's mix of guitar, bass and drums with more aggression. The new tracks - which form a forthcoming ep - have a more considered feel.

Wot Gorilla?

That consideration does them good too. Nothing reinvents the wheel but the rolling is good which is not that case with the much discussed Wot Gorilla? who's reputation proceeds them onto stage but there seems to be a troubling discord with what they are doing.

Half steady band, half aggressive thump they have the odd touch at something good but it is lost in a kind of clashing at sound which is likened to standing equidistant between two bands getting one in one ear, the other in the other.

Not entirely bad, but entirely too much and perhaps on a Sunday evening one is in no mood for complexity or perhaps - for me - Wot Gorilla? just need to make less noise and more sense. They are not unappreciated and at least one can say that they offer something original.

Delta Sleep

Delta Sleep and Loose Talk Cost Lives follow but do not live long in the mind. The fashion for interesting Afrobeat mixed with guitar playing sensibilities that started with Vampire Weekend seems to have lost something in the translation to the Sunday evening and drifts into the night ineffectually.

Tennis

There is a temptation when talking about the band Tennis to slip into any number of puns on the name none of which would be worth doing but all of which are sorely tempting. The band arrive as a husband and wife team from America it is said as if the World - now without The White Stripes - will fall for that line again but they arrive creating the kind of woozy pop which seems to command hearts and minds for what seems sadly brief flings of musical fancy.

Download a copy of track Pigeon and you feel a summer rush of exhilaration but that - sadly - fades and it fades on a grey day when your temper is frayed and you dismiss the tune as Pet Sounds without the angst which is not a million miles away from the truth.

Tennis, it is hoped, have more strings to the bow than nostalgia and certainly Pigeon suggests they are worth as many listens as one can afford them and - perhaps - to be returned to when the sun is out.

Co-headline show of Freelance Whales and Broken Records at The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Freelance Whales

Crowded onto the stage at the Brudenell are the six members of Freelance Whales and they have brought a glockenspiel.

A glockenspiel or a xylophone - I forget the difference between the two - but either way watching the Brooklyn band in action and seeing them pick out the melody to catchy hook from stand out track Hannah one is struck by the self-effacingness of it all. Chiming, simplistic and charming describes both melody, song and band.

For the uninitiated Freelance Whales fill the room left when Vampire Weekend made it fashionable to do something other than be The Strokes mixing the tried, tested and at times tiresome line up of instrumentation with the odd thing that gets hit with a stick that has a ball on the end of it.

And they do it well. "Indie" for sure but probably in the best and worse ways but enjoyable to watch. The set is first album Weathervanes reordered but the approach is fresh, and seems to blend the old and the new.

Broken Records

So while Broken Records - who follow as co-headliners - are a fine example of what they do they are left looking a little stolid. Not bad but heavy and claustrophobic. They put in a good set, but suffer in comparison.

Another year another set of albums, gigs and tracks. This year Dalliance bought a pile of CDs, downloaded five whole tracks and got an album comped. Make of that what you will. We have plans for the site next year, but we had them last year and they never happened.

For tracks we had but one winner with Summer Camp drifting from promoter Mark Husak to us and then onto the Dalliance turntable. Read a bit more about that if you will.

The world and its dog loves not to give Arcade Fire's The Suburbs album of the year for fear of being too obvious but our excuse is that we - or I - am just a bit too old and Tracey Thorn's lament on the passing of time spoke to me directly. Read about that if you please.

Gig of the year contenders came late in the year with the visit of Arcade Fire to these shores and Belle and Sebastian's return. Read more about that here.

Thank you, dear reader, for your interest.