Veronica Falls – review

Pop is reinventing so many old sounds that it was only a matter of time before groups got round to what John Peel called the "shambling bands" – a strand of 1980s indie indebted to the Velvet Underground and Orange Juice. Veronica Falls play big semi-acoustic guitars, and have a rhythm sound based around a tambourine and floor drum. The two girls and two boys wear a mixture of short skirts, buttoned-up shirts and indie fringes. In these days of download culture, they defiantly refer to their "last 7-inch" single. You wouldn't put money on them to topple Lady Gaga. However, their clever twist on the sound has won them a keen following. Glaswegians Roxanne Clifford and James Hoare's bittersweet vocal interplay has a punky edge, slightly reminiscent of the Rezillos . The Falls' songs delve into pop's tradition of death ballads typified by Ricky Valence's Tell Laura I Love Her and Terry Jacks' Seasons in the Sun. It's a beguiling mix, exemplified by Beachy Head's suicide pop and Bad Feeling , spiky pop with Brontë-esque melodrama. A broken guitar string produces an awkward gap and their newest songs notably outpace earlier ones, such as Found Love in a Graveyard. However, the gig starts to mimic their career's growing momentum, finding a comical visual metaphor in the disintegration of Clifford's barnet. When a hairclip flies out in Wedding Day, her hair covers one eye. By the time they end with the darkly inviting Come on Over , her long tresses are tumbling all over her face. The wilder the hair, the better the show, perhaps.