The Macclesfield four piece are back on the road as a precursor to the imminent drop of their as yet untitled second album, three songs of which are debuted here. They easily fill the compact space of Sneaky Pete’s on Valentine’s Day evening rewarding those couples looking to enjoy a bit of rock on a romantic night out.
The band launch into set opener Detroit which has the sold out crowd nodding along. Edinburgh audiences have a historic aversion to releasing the shackles early. However, after some gentle encouragement from drummer, lead singer and all round nice guy Tarek Musa, the place erupts and never lets up. They tear into a blistering one hour set, the bulk of which is taken from 2016’s refreshingly frantic debut album Tell Me If You’d Like To.
Speeding through crowd favourites Demons, It’s So Dark and the glorious wig out Better Man, it makes you wonder why they aren’t playing to bigger crowds, although the paucity of mid-sized live venues in the capital may well have distinctly reduced their options.
New songs Ready For War, No More and Animal follow a familiar template which could hint at a lack of diversity in their song writing, yet with such well constructed hooks and the sheer balls out fun of the delivery, they are the perfect band to set the pulse racing especially in the sweatiest venue in town.
Thing slow down momentarily as Musa abandons the drum stool for the spiky lullaby Take Me Away but Spring King aren’t a band to muck around with subtleties and reel off a series of infectious three minute stabs of raucous punk-pop punctuated with the band’s trademark staccato vocals.
By way of taking a breather, the group babble happily with the crowd between songs, prompting one punter to grump “cut the blether and play” although you’d be hard pressed to find fault after such an unrelentingly energetic set. The boisterous youths in the audience notch up the atmosphere further with a sparse but well intentioned attempt at a mosh pit which briefly threatens to turn into an impromptu stage invasion before set closer Rectifier brings proceedings to a close.
All in, Spring King prove that you don’t need po-faced posturing to steal an audiences heart, just decent tunes and a committed performance both of which should cement their promise and hopefully lead to bigger and better things.