Gig review: Allusinlove at The Lending Room, Leeds
There’s nothing clean or crisp about Allusinlove. This is, of course, exactly what they’re going for, but drenched in reverb leaves them sounding wet through.
Returning from their hiatus rebranded and to some reignited, the Yorkshire four-piece returned to Leeds with a fistful of It’s Okay To Talk and all the soft-rock you could bear to take in one sitting.
In an intimate venue like the Lending Room I couldn’t fathom a more fitting host to one of Leeds’s grandest modern possessions, yet somehow they managed to recreate the empty, nomadic sound of an open-air gig in a mere 200-capacity venue.
Moules’ vocals drift in and out of focus, sodden through riffs overpowering an already squashed voice that can’t carry the weight of the band on its back alone.
It was, for want of a better phrase, putty in your hands. There’s little to really grab hold of or sink your teeth into; song after song bleed into one another, the hour on stage feeling like driftwood coasting along. After the first slog of tracks you’re grasping at straws to find anything memorable or innovative, and when you do manage to pick out something worthwhile you’re listening from what feels like 100 metres away.
It’s easy to excuse a heavy lathering of BigSky if a band are in their early days. Reverb is every novice’s best friend, cloaking minor mistakes and scuffles with equipment with relative ease. But Allusinlove have racked up enough years for this to not be the case. This here was a conscious choice, and one that seemed to undermine the energy they still project on stage.
All the thrashing and bounding that gained them notoriety in the first place is firmly embedded in their live performances, but the sound just refuses to add up no matter how many hands I’m counting on.
Allusinlove need definition, and they need it fast.