Various Cruelties, 100 Club - review - Music - Arts

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But having sold out the 100 Club on a freezing Tuesday evening, the planets are ready to align and they might just outflank everyone. Born in London but raised in Leeds (and sounding like it), Liam O'Donnell, pictured, was a friendly but gauche frontman, derailed by equipment malfunction. Such was his between-song paralysis that he was reduced at one point to asking if anyone had any anecdotes they might like to share.

We didn't. When the foursome knuckled down to business, though, their best songs, the insistent Great Unknown and the impossibly catchy Don't Wanna Waste Your Time, were as layered as anything by the all-conquering National. O'Donnell's Alex Turner inflections were leavened by his winning way with a surprisingly soulful croon, even on the more punky material.

Meanwhile, bassist Beanie Bhebhe added manly riffs, an African uplift that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Paul Simon's Graceland (for all their awkwardness, Various Cruelties were nothing if not slinky) and, on both the anthemic She Is The One and Magnetic Field, the sort of scarf-waving guitar solo Snow Patrol probably think they are capable of.

It's early days yet - a debut album is due in March - but once they shed their live inhibitions, the world is theirs for the seducing.

Various Cruelties
100 Club
Oxford Street, W1D 1LL