Gig review: Heir/Braveface/Will Birch at 360 Club, The Library, Leeds

Will Birch and Braveface prove able openers this evening. Birch's guitar-led pop-rock sets the tone nicely while Braveface's sound is littered with classic rock homages and shout along choruses that really get the atmosphere going. The room is filling up nicely, too.
Heir at 360 Club, LeedsHeir at 360 Club, Leeds
Heir at 360 Club, Leeds

Heir are a bit special. Waltzing effortlessly between mum-friendly lyrics, earworm melodies and kudos-inducing harmonies, their tunes are a lesson in majestic pop-rock songwriting. Their performance is pretty electric too.

Polished and commanding, you can tell the group are no strangers to the stage (having toured recently with both Karima Francis and The Dunwells) and Tom Hammond comes across as passionate and flawless a frontman as the style demands. It’s a packed crowd for this sold-out EP launch and they’re clearly loving it.

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From the blues-tinged rocker ‘When The Lights Went Out’, the lead track on their new EP, to the cerebral lilt of ‘Call Off The Search’ the band show themselves to be a versatile live prospect.

Shimmering guitar, flawless piano and steady bass are underpinned by the kind of assured drumming that really ties a sound down. Consistently, though, it’s those sublime harmonies that steal the show: Towards the middle of the set the band join around a mic for a real campfire belter. It’s wonderful.

I feel about Heir the way I did about Maroon 5’s Songs About Jane – there’s no way it should be my bag but I can’t help but love it. That’s the thing with music that’s this well put together – when it’s this good, it transcends genre. Expect to hear them bothering the radio waves very soon.

http://www.heirtheband.com/

http://www.braveface.net/

https://soundcloud.com/willbirch

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