South Island Son bowled over Manchester’s Soup Kitchen as they launched their shiny new single ‘Slipping Away’.
On a day where spring was in bloom in the band’s hometown, South Island Son showed off their sun drenched sound to light up the gloom of the intimate basement venue.
While the set was advertised around the release of their new single, the performance felt more like a wider introduction to the multi-faceted and technicolor brilliance that South Island Son can produce. From the off, debut single ‘Down The Slopes’ shone with its pretty melody and ‘One Year At Sea’ bounced with its tripped-up bluesy licks before the tentatively titled ‘Scunny’ swaggered in confidently knowing the addition of saxophone to the track was going to raise the roof.
Despite being able to dance around different approaches to their music, at the core of South Island Son’s sound are two very tasteful and symbiotic guitarists in Tom Rothery and frontman Johnny Woodhead. Honey soaked lilts and blissed out grooves remain complimentary to one another and radiate a texture that is almost palpable and crafts the centre piece to what makes every song so easy to melt into.
Even when airing out a slow burner like ‘Sleepwalker’, it comes with this War On Drugs-esque euphoria that is always threatening to spark into life. That spark does finally arrive as they busted out the new single ‘Slipping Away’ with all its shimmery pop glory; lifting the recording from a lo-fi jaunt into a live colossus.
Closing out their set with the same potency as they’d shown throughout, the quartet waxed and waned between the fiery ‘Looking Down Seeing Up’ and the breezy ‘Borderline’.
All in all, it was a confident and upbeat performance from one of Manchester’s hottest indie-rock bands. With feel-good tunes and an endlessly cool style, South Island Son should be everything you listen to this summer.