Metronomy

Metronomy Metronomy MP3s or CDs Metronomy on Spotify

A packed crowd in the room above the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham patiently waited with bleary Sunday eyes for the Brighton four-piece. Patiently because despite the late start, most already knew Metronomy's carefully woven synths, driving bass and falsetto harmonies would be more than worth the wait.

Originally a duo hailing from Totnes, Metronomy have created their signatune over years from carefully mis-matched chords, unusual beats and a quirky on-stage presence. And on the night, they chose to exploit the best bits from the 2008 masterpiece Nights Out, leaving out any reference to debut Pip Paine (Pay the £5,000 you owe). A large handful of gems from their third album, The English Riviera, were also given an airing.

As they arrived on stage with trademark chest-height lights, the circular jewellery pierced the darkness in time with the band's off-beats - another feature that's now synonymous with Metronomy. Kicking off at full pace with On The Motorway then My Heart Rate Rapid, the repertoire of complex bleeps and tweeps, changing drum rhythms and robot dance moves were perfectly offset by the foursome's faux-nerd look. Whipping the vast student contingency into an early frenzy, they force an army of voices to call back at them "It won't be long", which had a faint echo of a 2011 prediction about it.

Formal introductions were made to the new material via latest single, She Wants - a track punctuated by funk grooves and deep bass keyboards that instantly blew the speakers with a proud, but marginally embarrassed acceptance. The Look is a new frontrunner with its insistent fairground piano loop and repeated chorus lines that force a shuffle from even the most two-left-footed. But all of the latest editions feel as though they've had more soul shoehorned into their nooks and crannies, with deeper bassline hooks injected by Gbenga Adelekan's guitar and Joseph Mount's electronica. There's also a smidgen less staccato, but it's all served up in just as quirky a fashion.

On The Motorway delivered more falsetto, while Holiday's forlorn tales of tussles of the heart were a perfect match for the pulse of the Blondie-rhythmed guitars. Beneath the on-stage antics and dance moves, Heartbreaker stood out as the most impeccable pop song on Nights Out. And it carries the imprint that Metronomy have now kept to propel them into the third album.

There was also time for A Thing For Me's layers of oom-pah synth and metronomic drum rolls. Its complex rhythms still serve as a reminder that the band don't shy away from tackling things others might not dare to try live, let alone pull off so effortlessly. On Dancefloors - a sorrowful soundtrack to a bad night out - was given as a gift from the band to anyone who had work the next morning. A fitting pre-encore track, it drowned the four walls in melancholic loops that perfectly offset Mount's despairing "I want to get more from this than you". Radio Ladio then provided balance as the finale, with the foursome acting as cheerleaders to coax their audience into an ecstatic, dancing end to the Birmingham leg of what should become a landmark tour for them.

Metronomy might just be the perfect antidote to the creeping fear of Monday morning. However, there is more to them than the on-stage angular dancing and light-adornments that give them an idiosyncratic air. These eccentricities do blend seamlessly with their sound, but look beneath the things that make them such a great aural and visual spectacle, and you find that Metronomy have been quietly chipping away, making a slow and steady impact on their genre for a number of years now. This year could well be the one when their art-electro soundtrack gathers many more followers willing to dance to their beat.