Field Music

‘Pretending to be a band since 2005,’ claims Field Music’s MySpace page modestly. Well, The List can reliably inform you that this is the real deal. Returning after a three-year hiatus, Sunderland’s Brewis brothers, along with their two new bandmates, have a packed Captain’s Rest in raptures from the first precision-placed note.

Field Music take to the stage exuding that sort of ordinary-bloke down-to-earthness that sets the crowd immediately at ease, and ensures that the music is left to speak entirely for itself. And speak it does, in a complex and beguiling language of in-your-face time signature changes, criss-cross harmonies and unusual rippling drum beats. At times not unlike White Album-era Beatles with less psychedelia and more social awkwardness and daily grind mundanity (oh, and Mackem accents), their guitar hooks are twangy and retro, yet the sound is fresh and still unmistakably theirs and no one else’s.

It’s a shame that the marimba parts have been dropped from the live show, but you can forgive Field Music that in their effortless, tight and endlessly engaging performance of richly layered jigsaw pop.