To synth or not to synth? was undoubtedly the big question on the minds of both Chapel Club and predictably, a large number of their fans, across their major UK headline tour. Advertised as a two set show comprising both new, as yet unrecorded, material and the more familiar, and beloved, favourites from the London quintets debut Palace album released last January, and the preceding Wintering EP.
That Wintering was written after the bulk of what materialised on Palace, it may have led some down a blind alley: the sparser, more soulful sound; deep, emotive complexity of melody and lyric being perhaps a foretaste of future stylistic endeavours on the second album. Barely a year on, on this eight date tour, it therefore unsurprisingly was to take Club die-hards as well as those who had grown into them via single releases such as Surfacing and All The Eastern Girls unawares of what was to be unveiled during the first half of each show: five songs that eschewed the lavishness of the guitar for much of the focus, and instead delved into electro synth territory. Introducing melodica, drum machine and a range of stage gear never before witnessed - at a Chapel Club gig at least. While the band had hinted at a more upbeat mode would be coming into play, no one was expecting quite such a shift.
At it was not only the instruments that were new. Synonymous with a vocal pitch that, whilst not down deep in Tom Waits country by any means, plumbs the smoothly rich baritone, Lewis Bowman has upped his game to a falsetto level. Shy, heavy on word count in almost half spoken delivery, then soars to a peak on the title chorus line. Not quite to glass shattering level, but heading that way. There is less of the Ian Curtis too on the dancier feel of New Colours and Old House, the latter with the makings of a potential single release. Yet, on several hearings it is the more down-tempo Excuses/The Ice, filled with bass and synth grooves, that compels one to watch Bowmans heart-and-soul-filled performance on.
The lyrical content remains, however (as one might expect of a writer of Bowmans propensity for ambiguous subtext and imagery), firmly fixed in poetic license and intensity. Burt Reynolds, for example, not being a paean to the American moustachioed he-man 70s actor, but influenced by the murder of David Kato, the Ugandan gay activist; while Waterlight Park, a moody, sombre affair, heads back further into the dark terrain that has hitherto been staple Chapel Club fare: I watch and the only answer made/Comes from a black-suited cannonade/Pounding the corpses with a stern expression/Shaming the loud bloods indiscretion.
From kicking off at Manchesters Sound Control (where, interestingly, they opt for performing a rare live cover. Not, as one might hazard a guess, The Smiths or even The Flaming Lips or of similar ilk, but Janet Jacksons Lets Wait Awhile) through to the closing finale at the home gig at Londons Shepherds Bush Empire, crowds seemed at times surprised (this isnt Chapel Club, is it?), at times un-moved; at others, wholeheartedly throwing themselves into whatever the band held up on offer. Seemingly drawing in many who were new to the band in any musical form, the Clubs standards of O Maybe I and the panoramic epic-ness of The Shore as the nights closing number, alongside last single Blind and Roads (both from the Wintering EP) which followed in the main set, will have no doubt left them walking out into the night air having been converted - or at least curious to investigate their work to date in more depth.
With several of the new songs being newly written, as Bowman informs audiences each night, you feel they are still at the stage of testing the waters, not just on an audience but as much on themselves and how they can carry them off, and what and where any adjustments might need to be made. (As evidenced by the first shows in Manchester and at Edinburghs Cabaret Voltaire encountering a sound problem or two. By the time of their Brighton Komedia show, guitarist Alex Parry could be seen spending some time teching the synths himself to ensure everything was A1 before the band took to the stage.)
Whether or not the synth sound is one that will gain or lose Chapel Club fans, they can only be applauded for progression and for flying in the face of what might have been expected. But with a band who would seem to work at the sped at which they do, one cannot help but feel that by the time the new album is completed and recorded over the winter, and toured during 2012, they may already be turning their collective abilities into yet another musical direction.