Tindersticks, Somerset House, London

The August surroundings of Somerset House on The Strand lend a certain elegance and grandeur to any chilly summer Sunday evening. Witnessing the bruised, burnished souls laid bare by the Tindersticks at the venue ensured a sumptuous match between performer and location, both immersed in hushed reverence.

The band’s position as veterans of the early nineties indie wars with an enviable back catalogue and impressive sideline soundtracking exquisite French dramas has afforded them with a respect and gravitas far beyond the reach of their more moribund peers. Returning earlier this year with ‘The Something Rain’, they appear to have a new-found urgency, a surprising and welcome development for a band who famously deal in wounded melancholia and endless heartbreak.

The fact that frontman Stuart Staples now sports a magnificent, loping moustache reminiscent of Lee Hazlewood also helps matters. The word ‘louche’ should have been coined for this man alone. His minimal audience interaction is tempered by his vibrato-laced baritone, managing to sound both overwrought and vulnerable at all times. Tindersticks have few ‘hits’ in the traditional sense but their loyal fan base is appeased by a set which effortlessly flits through their output over the last twenty years.

An early highlight is the cover of Odyssey’s soul classic ‘If You’re Looking For A Way Out’ while Staples shares vocal duties with organist David Boulter on the marvellous ‘Dick’s Slow Song’. With long term acolyte Terry Edwards guesting on saxophone, the performance veers more towards the jazz stylings of the band’s more recent output rather than the string-soaked headiness of the early releases. An unquestionable and unlikely highlight is the rumbling and ever-potent ‘Chocolate’, a prose poem intoned via the reassuringly Northern tones of Boulter concerning a sexual conquest with a rather unexpected denouement. The audience’s gasps of laughter seem almost incongruous at a Tindersticks concert but this performance is less an exercise in doleful introspection, more a celebration of the band’s restraint, consistency and impeccable grooming amid ever changing musical fashions.