Gig review: Amelia Coburn at Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds

Amelia Coburn is a natural storyteller. During the biggest headline gig outside her native Middlesbrough, the singer and ukulele player entertains the audience with anecdotes about her interests and the people she’s met.

Many of these tales are woven into her songs. The country-pop ‘Sleepy Town’ dreams about escaping from her hometown (“it gets faster each night on tour!” she pants breathlessly). ‘Le Fabuleux Destin de Sandra’ documents her ex-landlady’s revenge on her abusive husband with gleeful Parisian-pop. The French version of album track ‘Sandra’, she jokes that the translation was an excuse to finally use her multi-language degree.

Mainly drawing on material from debut album Between The Moon And The Milkman, which won praise from Paul Weller and Paul Heaton, she goes beyond her ‘folk songwriter’ tag. ‘See Saw’ does carry the gothic-folk of The Unthanks but she also has a more commercial edge, with ‘Dublin Serenade’ sharing the twee-folk of Birdy and ‘Vinegar Valentine’ being pop-folk. Closing track ‘Perfect Storm’ even interpolates a section of The Beatles’ ‘Norwegian Wood’.

These varied influences continue on two unreleased tracks, both of which are inspired by her love of gothic. Describing ‘The Wicker Man’ as her favourite comfort film, the Celtic-folk of ‘This Body Is Yours To Keep’ is written for an imagined film re-make. ‘Metamorphosis’, which is named after the Franz Kafka novella of the same title, blends Americana with her strong northeast accent.

She confesses that she wrote the new songs after her manager promoted the tour on the promise it would showcase material from her second album. They suggest an artist still fine-tuning her sound but with a magnetic stage presence, she manages to carry even the set’s weaker moments. It’s a charisma that could see her go far, if falling somewhat short of the moon.