Gig review: Million Dead at Project House, Leeds

“Good evening, Leeds,” Frank Turner hollers at a sweaty Project House crowd. Down to a tight black vest, unruly facial hair groomed beneath close-cropped curls, he cuts the figure of an unhinged aerobics instructor on a tattooed bender. “We are Million Dead,” he proclaims, “and for the first time in twenty years, we are back!”

Two decades is a long time in rock and roll, but even with currency high amid the current reunion-era milieu, few anticipated that the London post-hardcore cult favourites would return to the stage. Their 2005 dissolution in the wake of bluntly termed “irreconcilable differences” seemed to signal the end of a youthful chapter; their singer’s steady success as a folk-punk mainstay since then suggested little appetite to revisit memory lane.

Nevertheless, they arrive in West Yorkshire with bridges mended across the beck and bolstered by a new-and-improved lineup. Besides Turner and the rhythm section of bassist Julia Ruzicka and drummer Ben Dawson, Million Dead’s comeback brings both original guitarist Cameron Dean and replacement Tom Fowler on-board, swelling their sound to a double-pronged attack that revels in the increased beefiness of their sonic scramble.

The results possess greater melody and finessed tone than the five-piece perhaps ever dreamed of in their genesis incarnation. From the garage-desert acceleration that propels opener Breaking the Back, there’s a raucous interplay at hand throughout a seventy-minute set that suggests this is about more than the money for those involved – a truism that repeatedly rings in their favour as the night unfolds.

It rears its head in the way I Am the Party weaves its lines into endorphin-rush madness, or how the lesser-spotted Sasquatch delights with its low-slung groove. Living the Dream meanwhile works with tuneful oscillation and sheer aural detonation; To Whom It May Concern conversely gives rise to the balladeer songcraft Turner has harnessed in his solo career to great effect.

The star pays frequent tribute to bandmates and fans, dedicating A Song to Ruin for their former crew, and admits he relearned his old lyrics on Google. But the honest affection shines through. “We’re here as five friends,” he says before Smiling at Strangers on Trains kicks off the home straight. “And it’s been an absolute joy that we’ve got to do this one more time.” If this is indeed the final goodbye once again, it is a fittingly valedictory note on which to close the book.