Another revelation awaited bruised ears and cold noses in this consistently interesting venue, with its varied biscuit tin selection of ace bands.

Tonight's excursion gently laps into view with the gorgeous voice and engaging persona of Tanya Auclair, a delightful songstress who creates live magic on stage with a sampler and fiery imagination. With ukelele and portable keyboard to the fore, she brings a welcome organic element to her performance. Sounds float from her electronic squeezebox, mixed with pure tones and sweet ululations.

In between, she whiles away the spare seconds with a mini-travelogue, spanning Gothenburg to Lapland...

Tanya is a delight; she has a 'smile' in her voice, going up and down the octaves declaiming "hear that whistle blow!!!", scaling arpeggio cliffs and setting her spirit free in this unassuming hall, her temple for the evening.

She samples her own voice, instantly conjuring up a compressed harmonic choir of angel chords. Rounding off her famous set with a mind blowingly fantastic version of Roy Davis Jr's 'Gabriel', deconstructed into a perfectly poised acoustic serenade, one can imagine the stars outside sparkling that little bit brighter, in unison of course.

Now for the main course.....returning to the scene after a few years in the wilderness, Guillemots greet the eager crowd with 'Walk to the Water' : piano lines link to lead guitar, increasing the intensity , deepening the atmosphere. There are psychededlic overtones, a maelstrom of heavy noise, underpinned by a throbbing bass note. Fyfe Dangerfield, self-appointed front man and a studied force of nature intones "You cannot love with both your hands" - what does it all mean?

From the outset the songs, the BIG MUSIC remain curiously tethered to the stage, desperate to break off, to fly upwards, not quite exploding into life.... it is not long before the "sparks and shining dragons" become flames, the view widescreen, all the beautiful colours bleeding into one, with epic sweep.

The images are of dramatic coast and country, hills, moors and mountain tops, not sandpits and parkland. ESCAPE!!!

The band start to gel, almost imperceptibly, naked and alive, wave after wave of awesome melody crashing into your headspace. Prog rock sheen meets modern pop nous, distortion in the midst of harsh beauty, sonically inventive, always developing, always changing.

After the temporary storm comes the relative quiet, soft hammond chords mixing with Fyfe's tender, wounded voice, 'drifting out of reach', a dreamy confection.

Moving to more acoustic musings, you could hear a pin drop, no-one chats (so not LONDON!!), this is self-examination but buoyed up with grand themes "Southern winds...where do all the boats go??"

The songs take on lives of their own, like Disneyfied, multi-coloured mini-epics. 'Yesterday is dead' seems dirge-like, but its MBV-like guitar stretching, layer upon layer connects with the base instincts. The encore has 'My side of the story', a garage-style rock out, scuzzy and against type. Its glam elements fizz and shine, the influences glistening on a paisley sleeve.

The closer (from that sometimes overblown but always diverting debut LP) comes on like Elton John, sub-classical, with measured distortion. The lyrics self-limit ("Sometimes I could cry for miles, but I don't...."), then take flight ("Thrown across water, like a stone, get me a doctor") - this is EXUBERANCE, MADNESS. The symphonic ending is intense as it should be, peals and peals of guitar and drums, a series of controlled outbursts of frustration announced with yelps and lurches.

You are going to enjoy this - it will restore your faith in the undimmed power of live music done well. Seek out these high flying birds, not some ex- Oasis man's version of a copied past.

Spread those wings.

Be sure to check out the interview that we conducted at the gig HERE