Adult Jazz - Spook

Leeds band Adult Jazz have been working on their debut album for four years. But on ‘Gist Is” lead track, without overstating it, they sound like they’ve poured an entire lifetime into a nine-minute storm.

Split into (at least) four parts, the opening smattering of steel pan doesn’t even tell 1% of the tale that’s about to follow.

Harry Burgess commands everything. His voice flickers from choral chants to a more tender, emotive singer-songwriter routine. Midway through, the band join in unison for one great jolly harmony. Then things take a more extreme turn. Six minutes to the good - by which point it feels like several songs have played in succession - ‘Spook’ stops hiding in the dark. The bedlam that follows marks a peak that’ll be hard to top. The most pre-conceived kind of cacophony, but it’s exactly the kind that has Adult Jazz going way beyond the initial smatterings of hype. They’re a special band and they know it.