While they may be joined on the bill by jerky indie merchants Django Django, it's not until a troupe of four - barely discernible from Mount et al. from a distant balcony - enter stage-right lugging what sound like South American woodwind instruments (possibly procured during a recent trek across the continent) to resurrect lost Metronomy moments, including a glorious This Could Be Beautiful (It Is). Lamentably this rephrasing is all too detached from the show as a whole as they disappear before Mount, Prior, jiving bassist Gbenga Adelekan, and keyboardist/saxophonist/MIDI saxophonist Oscar Cash emerge to the atmospheric South Coast strains of the title track of their seminal Mercury-nominated third effort, The English Riviera. As this intro subsides like a receding froth, the pulsating Krautrock of Love Underlined remains. From this moment on, irrespective of to which album each track belongs, their set gallivants with the relentless pace of Nights Out: the might of The Look becomes impregnable, Oscar Cash roving the rounded stage atop a mobile organ that Mount dubiously claims to "look like a car", while the bossanova cadence of Some Written rings with an epical orchestration preferable to any night of the Proms. Occasionally Prior's less racy rhythms ricochet awkwardly off Albert's curves, as on the routinely seductive She Wants, although her ability these days is remarkable, as demonstrated on a rambunctious My Heart Rate Rapid that threatens to fly off its figurative hinges. As Godzillan as You Could Easily Have Me may sound when belched out from the heart of the Hall, when set alongside the similarly instrumental The End Of You Too, attentions wander in search of the next unassuming hit, and how the hits beam like retina-singeing headlights tonight: Back On The Motorway with its MIDI sax solo (as Mount points out quite possibly the first to fill the Royal Albert Hall), The Bay with its glittered bass arpeggio pummel, and Heartbreaker with its advisory slump for the distressed and hopelessly desperate. There's even a cameo from once-Metronomy member Gabriel Stebbing as he pulls off a cameo in the wings of the lower tier to deliver the squirming guitar solo to an especially ferocious and expeditious rendition of Corinne. However it's forthcoming single Everything Goes My Way that really does it tonight: backed by the returning woodwind ensemble, while Veronica Falls' Roxanne Clifford plays truant (well, she's touring the US of A with The Drums and is some 3,700-odd miles from South Kensington) the first few bars are practically inaudible through the unabating whooping that greets Prior's impeccable cooing. What with it being their final show in the UK this year, Mount wishes all in attendance a Merry Christmas, and what a delightful early Christmas present they'd gift-wrapped. If a metronome ticks with ordinary, systematic monotony, Metronomy continue to tock with extraordinary idiosyncrasy.
