The Wombats at Brixton Academy | Comments :

06/05/2008 by WOMBATS

The Wombats at Brixton Academy, SW19

Like most of the current indie-rock intake, the Wombats are in a perpetual rush

David Sinclair

The Wombats played in Brixton exactly a year ago, at a venue called The Windmill where the capacity is 130. On Saturday, in the early stages of an extensive British tour, they played the 5,000-capacity Academy. That is a rapid ascent by any standards but, like most of the current indie-rock intake, the Wombats do everything as if they are in a perpetual rush to beat the clock. The songs on their debut album, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, are all speedy, spiky pop-rock missives. In concert they are even speedier and spikier.

The three-man group met as students at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and it was clear even from the introductory burst of harmony singing a cappella on Tales Of Girls, Boys & Marsupials, that all three were skilled performers and energetic entertainers.

Scrambling for their instruments (guitar, bass, drums and some dabbling ..boards), they piled into Kill the Director, the first of many quirky narratives in which the singer and lyric writer Matthew Murphy offered his take on the life and times of a youngish lad making his way in the confusing world of the arts and media. "So with the angst of a teenage band/ Here's another song about a gender I'll never understand," he sang in a swift, stylish slur that bore a passing resemblance to Robert Smith of the Cure.

Unlike the Cure, the Wombats maintained an unfailingly upbeat disposition. Even the supposedly somber Here Comes the Anxiety, with its knowing opening line, "I'd say this is the darkest song I ever wrote", sounded just as exuberant as all the others. Despite their skill as entertainers this was a performance that skated over the emotional and musical landscape with a rather glib insouciance. Their best song, Let's Dance to Joy Division, exhorted us to "celebrate the irony", but maybe the invitation itself was meant to be ironic? Hard to tell.

The stage was decorated with lots of Wombats "signs" and a furry creature sat on top of Murphy's amp. LED lights flickered like fireflies during Moving to New York and a giant inflatable Wombat called Douglas was unveiled to the strains of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra before they launched into typically robust encores of My First Wedding and Backfire at the Disco.

Incredibly, just five minutes after they had finished you could pick up a nicely packaged, officially sanctioned CD recording of the show from the foyer of the Academy. The concert thrill, bottled and ready to take away, instantly.

Touring. Next show tonight, Bristol Academy. www.thewombats.co.uk