As small venues go, The Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh must be up there with the best of them. Such a tiny place managed to pack in a decent crowd of 100+ to celebrate the launch of The Spook School's second album Try To Be Hopeful, on a Monday night no less.

The four piece, three of whom look like they should still be at school, made every effort to ward off the ghosts that are reported to stalk the lower depths of The Banshee. Playing a 12 song set of high energy indie/punk it wasn’t long before the crowd was swaying along in time to the tunes. This was the first gig of a mini UK tour that will surely improve once the opening bars to their Taylor Swift cover are fully remembered.

Deploying a confetti cannon at the start of the set and fitting in 'Burn Masculinity', 'Binary', 'I'll Be Honest' all at an infectious pace it was clear to see they have a good deal more live experience as, from the first bar of their set, there was a tightness not heard from support acts No Ditching and Breakfast Muff.

No Ditching, from Durham, all looked slightly startled standing on stage but still provided a decent set of heavy indie, with the unusual inclusion in their ranks of a marching band snare drummer. However, their vocals lacked a cutting edge that may be more down to the Banshee’s mix than anything else. Certainly ones to watch for future material.

Late additions, Breakfast Muff, from Glasgow played musical instruments in more ways than one as they swapped places throughout their set. Reminding me of early Bis and also X-Ray Specs their whimsical lyrics about cats and exes raised a smile and they'd a good line in self-deprecating banter (indeed all three bands interacted far better with the crowd than most acts I've seen this year).

The UK indie scene is still cranking out good and influential bands and one if not all three here will go on to bigger and better venues for sure.

Further tour details for The Spook School can be found here.

Try To Be Hopeful is released on Fortuna POP! and is available from amazon & iTunes.

“You are all Johnny,” she shouts, after she has passionately delivered a plea for freedom, against corporations, for peace, against this corruption that is tainting this world. “Use your voice”, she yells out, as the guitar is strumming this up-tempo riff that doesn’t really get the audience dancing since most people are in their fifties, sixties, possibly seventies. Which makes sense, since it is the 40th anniversary of Patti Smith’s iconic album Horses. And by the looks of it, the audience not only bought it on release, but they remember it, too. They remember the heartfelt plea for freedom, and the honest, pure ode to those who have died. And despite it being forty years later, Smith being forty years older, and despite that this celebration of the forty year anniversary has been going on for a good couple of months, Smith still manages to eloquently and wholeheartedly stand by her message.

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” it’s one of those opening lines that is timeless. Just as the evocative imagery of Johnny banging his head against the lockers, the trampling of the white horses, and the boy asking his dad to take him with him. As the pretty young girl is humping on the parking meter, Jimmy Morrison is ascending with Prometheus wings to the next chapter of maybe not even life, but existence. As Johnny is starting to feel the energy, the band dives into Gloria again, a moment that manages to elicit the cheers of all whose bedtime would have past on any other day of the week. No bedtime, no rules and regulations, they are just words tonight. And tonight, it’s one of those nights that belongs to us, which she and her band play in the encore. Would she know that, in this country, a dance version of that anthemic song charted back in the Nineties?

Patti Smith still exudes vibrancy, and she reminds us that we, too, should feel Life. Alive. We need to Live. Feel. Love. And fight, too, but not with bombs, or guns, but with the one thing we have more of. Human kindness. She kisses her guitar after saying that this is the only weapon we need, that we bring peace with poetry, art, and songs. “And it never runs out of ammunition”, she says, breaking every string on it when they are at the tail end of a cover of ‘My Generation’ which, along with The Velvet Underground, gets a shout-out. The latter which is done by her band as she takes a momentary break from the action. After disappearing briefly, she arrives back, waiting in the wings, just in time to watch appreciatively, proudly as her son goes off on a guitar solo.

Someone else’s son, buttoned-up in a neat, white shirt, leans on his dad’s shoulders on the staircase near the side, which is full of people trying to get a bit of a height advantage in the sold-out Tivoli Vredenburg venue. As Patti Smith comes back the fresh faced lad cheers, singing that the night belongs to lovers, and when Patti leaves he gives her a wave. Sure, the 44 euro price point might have been slightly too steep for those still learning about life, love, and lost instead of having already experienced it (and having, you know, a paying job), but the message that both the album forty years ago, as well as Patti Smith tonight, throws out there is still just as relevant.

And as the teenage boy leaves the venue tugging on dad’s sleeve, having witnessed such a strong, charismatic, and honest spokesperson, who knows, maybe the future might heed the warning after all. Being an individual, free from corruption, war, and manipulation, when brought so convincingly and artistically, sounds like a pretty good deal for any generation, let alone the one yet to define itself. It’s something that Patti Smith would surely be happy about, people continuing the fight and at the end she reminds us that we, the people, have the power. Tonight she made a hell of a case that we should never forget that.

Photo: Katie Clare

When The Cribs last played Manchester back in February, the show was as raucous and as sweaty affair as one might imagine; the ground floor of The Ritz becoming a heaving throng, sweat dripping and limbs flailing. What else you may have noticed if you were at that show, is how the then-new tracks, 'An Ivory Hand' or 'Pink Snow' for instance, despite fitting in with established tracks sonically, brought about a lull in the proceedings thanks to the crowd's unfamiliarity with the material.

Six months have passed since then however, and the material from From All My Sisters now sits snugly in The Cribs' canon, as if it had been there from the start. As a result of this, tonight's set is back-boned by material taken from their most recent cut, and, as if to prove to the band that their new material is just as loved as their old, an early rendition of 'Different Angle' receives the largest mosh-pit of the night so far.

Whilst last time the only set back came from the crowd's unfamiliarity with the tracks, tonight's comes early on in the form of questionable sound levels. Both throughout opener 'Ancient History' and following track 'I'm A Realist' singer/guitarist Ryan Jarman is plagued with guitar troubles; individual notes are barely discernible, though as is the case with the latter, the crowd participation more than fills in the gaps.

By fifth track 'Finally Free' any issues have been well and truly ironed out, and the energy exuded from the band is wholly transferred to the crowd, the writhing mass of fans beneath us a sight much like that from February; sweat-soaked and beer-fueled bodies throwing themselves stage-wards, in adoration.

Though the Albert Hall might not be the most intimate of venues the city has to offer (such intimacy is forgone in favour of its exquisite acoustics), The Cribs somehow manage to make the lofty venue feel more like one the Northern Quarter's spit 'n' sawdust pubs; even from the balcony the charm and charisma of the band is evident, and is what we can only assume is the secret to their longevity and lasting appeal.

With a veritable arsenal of tracks in their catalogue, obvious fan favourites are bound to get neglected, and tonight personal favourite 'Another Number' is notably missing from the set. With such an array at their disposal however, songs that were once reserved for an encore now take their place mid-set, and the final trio of tracks takes the shape of 'Mirror Kisses', 'Men's Needs' and new(ish) track 'Pink Snow'.

It's a bold move ending on a recent number, and the fact the response it receives is more subdued than the more established tracks it accompanies is understandable, given the rapturous response brought about by the aforementioned 'Mirror Kisses' and 'Men's Needs' respectively.

"Manchester has always treated us as one of its own," bassist Gary states "Tonight might be the best show we've ever played here." Far from being an aficionado of the band I've only managed to see them a handful of times and can't attest to any of those particularly early shows. There's an element of truth in what Gary says though, and while many of the band's contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, The Cribs torch continues to burn just as bright, if not brighter, than ever. 

The audience at the Roundhouse stand waiting in anticipation while the clock projected onto the screen at the back of the stage counts down the minutes. As zero hour approaches, the crowd chant – “five, four, three, two, one”. Low walk onto the stage. If sinister three-piece husband/wife Mormon slowcore is what you’re looking for, then you’re in the right place. There is a black and white projection of a waterfall running down the backdrop of the stage. As they walk on, the outlines of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker create silhouettes on the back wall, an effect both hypnotic and sinister, adjectives one could use as a fairly apt description of Low.

 They kick off with new album, Ones And Sixes opener, ‘Gentle’. Electronic, scattershot drums like a eulogy, their audience are immediately rapt. They follow with lead single from the album, ‘No Comprende’ - the muted 4/4 of the guitar underpinning Sparhawk’s croons, “The house is on fire and your hands are tied…” Things are equally as menacing on ‘The Innocents’, with Parker’s gentle, lilting “all you innocents, might be done for it...” Low’s music has always resisted interpretation, the repetition of single lines forcing their listener to engage with a song as a sonic landscape, rather than reading the words like a narrative. No verse/chorus here, only the slow teasing out of a theme. Low stand quiet onstage - no hints, no chat, no clues. Just three shadows on a black and white backdrop.

Now entering their third decade as a band, Low have never rested on their laurels. Although thematically Low albums often reference each other, every new release represents a band constantly moving forward. Ones And Sixes is as far removed from the lush, Tweedy-produced guitar songs of previous effort, The Invisible Way as that album was from the icy beauty of 2011’s C’mon, or the electronic bleeps of 2007’s Drums And Guns. Although their music has never stayed the same, the seam that runs through all Low records though, is that sense of foreboding - the feeling that while the band are standing onstage singing, there is something in the corner of your eye, something approaching.