Everything Everything, Scala, London

Some gigs feel like a homecoming, even when they’re blatantly not. Usually tagged a Manchester band, Everything Everything are nevertheless greeted with the warmth reserved for a returning, conquering hero. And well they might – an album that squeaked into the Top 20, a groundswell of press support, hell, even a triumphant workout on ‘Later… with Jools’ – this is the Everythings’ time and London loves a bevy of hip young things.

So they’re on ebullient form, Jonathan Higgs is in tremendous voice and pin-up bass lad Jeremy Pritchard leads the rabble-rousing. ‘Qwerty Finger’ gets a well-oiled Scala crowd jumping in a flurry of handclaps, leading to a shuffled-pack hurtle through Man Alive, every song now seared into the fans’ minds. It’s not an easy album; Everything Everything wear their music theory qualifications on their sleeves, mucking about with time signatures, hopping chords and scaling unfeasible falsetto peaks, but the clash of ideas somehow results in a cohesive, catchy gem. It’s danceable, singalong R&B pop, and at times quite beautiful.

The powerhouses are firm favourite ‘My KZ Ur BF’ and the ear-splitting crescendos of ‘Suffragette Suffragette’, but Everything Everything really startle when the volume’s down and Higgs (with some able support from Pritchard and guitarist/keyboard player Alex Robertshaw) soars. ‘Two For Nero’’s medieval part song silences the room; encore opener ‘Tin (The Manhole)’ is dreamy, its electro-glockenspiel hypnotic. These gorgeous, complex arrangements drive home how unusual the band is. They clearly have the capacity to irritate with their refusal to kow-tow to meat-and-two-veg structure – art-school pop has always been divisive – but anything clever-clever is steam-rolled by sheer melodic nous. It’s only been one album, but so far, so good.

Finally, Higgs announces a new track. Except it turns out to be ‘Photoshop Handsome’. The rascals. In a tribal, manic melee of bleeps and screeches, we’re done, dizzy and euphoric – and left looking forward to the next time they come “home”.