Thursday 29/03/07 The Shins, Viva Voce @ Kentish Town Forum, London

What an attractive team Viva Voce make- she pixie-like but wielding her axe like a heavy rock pro, he sweatbanded up and happily bashing away at the drums with a serene grin. Promoting their latest offering, ‘Get Yr Blood Sucked Out’, they play a mixture of jolly, lolloping Americana and fun, Wayne’s World style OTT rock. The title track is a lovely, Simon and Garfunkle-y tune with a fuzzy, retro groove. The cutesy vocals contrast well with the heavy, bassy buzz and the drummer does some smashing work on the seemingly talc-covered cymbals. Between album tracks they throw themselves into a few 70's rock behemoth work-outs but the Dandy Warhols-esque Lesson No 1 reveals them to be a little too commercial to convince us. All in all they have the looks, the clothes and the retro styling but like a branch of Urban Outfitters it's all too perfect and a little soulless.

On to a band with plenty of soul and heart and other lovely, warm, human qualities, The Shins play an outpouring of unbridled joy with whoops and claps and skips. Pleasingly they feature a lot of tracks from their previous album ‘Chutes Too Narrow’ tonight, including a terrific ‘Kissing The Lipless’ that has the crowd jiggling along merrily, a triumphant ‘Young Pilgrims’ and they encore with the haunting ‘Those To Come’.

James Russell Mercer's voice is clear and effortlessly drops to a wonderful baritone from his usual position at the top end of the scale. The band seem to be good pals as they smile at each other when they play and give each other room for individual flourishes. As each song is perfectly realised, the less familiar ones from new album ‘Wincing the Night Away’ still get the crowd moving though they don't have the entire room singing along like the older tracks. A huge roar fills the forum when the last note ends and the audience seem ecstatic- if only we could have the opportunity to see them more often.