And so after months of prickly anticipation, half caught gigs in pool halls, dance clubs and indie hell-holes, Byrne finally deliver the teasing six-track masterpiece which they always threatened. Patrick Byrne's busted choirboy blues is revealed in all its breathy beauty, surrounded by dizzying piano, brass stabs, a rock steady rhythm section and a bastardised Byrnetempi organ to complete the picture.
'Waiting For Winter' is an opening shot across the bows of the tired independent sector - its thickly layered Lennon-esque vocal draped across subtle piano chords and drum loops as a lone melodica player patrols the ramparts. 'Sleeping Giant' then marches into view, a wonderful one-chord wonder shaped by a fair wind from the East and a chorus that leaps onto a snare drum crack and burrows its way into your heart before its dazzling crescendo.
Take a breather with the acoustic trot of 'Greener' - an easy vocal, sweetly menacing beneath that of a soaring, girl soprano before the irresistible, Gallic swing of 'Tidal Wave' comes on like the Velvets busking in Le Touquet. Live show stopper, 'Embers' slips from its shackles, a waltzing accordion and piano arpeggio-driven monster that gradually flexes its not inconsiderable muscle as Sgt. Pepper's brass section dances above the shifting sand of a killer chord sequence and the band attacks on all fronts before retreating behind a nakedly affecting, descending piano line. Superb. Hankies at the ready for 'Drink All Day' in which that gorgeous, fragile voice and thrummed guitar stand magnificently alone on a tale of shared self-destruction, ripped from a still-beating heart with a chorus and vocal to die for.
Stick around for hidden track, 'Ballad Of The Wet Dog' recorded during an audible thunder storm at the singer's flat - a bass clarinet fuelled lament that owes more to a New Orleans dive than the band's Shoreditch home. And that's 'Slowly and Gloriously' - an astonishingly mature and musically engaging debut from a quartet you'll be hearing a lot more from and about.
