Veronica Falls, Islington Assembly Hall, London

‘Have you ever been here before? Did anyone got married next door?’ jokes drummer Patrick Doyle to a brimming Islington Assembly Hall, a venue whose atmosphere, high ceilings and psychedelic projections on the walls seem custom made for Veronica Falls.

New album opener ‘Tell Me’ is chosen to start the set, followed by an ‘old new one’, ‘My Heart Beats’. Then, after a fringe-banging moment with crowd-pleaser ‘Beachy Head’ they return to the newbies with the sorrowful sweetness of ‘Broken Toy’ and if that chorus isn’t enough to leave the attendant crowd humming, the quartet will make sure you take home its intriguing riff.

‘Thank you for coming! We’ve been all over the place…’ guitarist James Hoare explains to the crowd, ‘but we’re gonna play some more songs from our new album for you now’. The band is just back from a North American tour after a brief Spanish trip at the beginning of the year, and London is the last date of their UK tour before embarking to Europe until the end of May. But we wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve started plotting their third record already.

They might still be setting up their own instruments on stage and writing their setlist on (half a) cardboard plate but when a song you’ve never heard before hits you instantly and transport you to a velvety technicolor garden of familiar sounds, their growth as a band is evident. Who’s calling them ‘goth’ now huh?

After a special intro for ‘Wedding Day’ (swapping the chorus with the verse) and the stampede of guitars on ‘Come On Over’ they leave the stage without notice, coming back for a three-songs encore that included ‘Stephen’ (AKA Steve-O) and the powerful/gloomy ‘The Fountain’.