Supporting Death Cab For Cutie is a great honour and a wonderful opportunity, but with such a masterclass set to follow, warming the crowd to their own beats was always going to be quite the challenge for The Head And The Heart, but they pulled it off.
Sounding somewhat like a folk-version of Arcade Fire, or quite similar to the UK’s Mumford And Sons, The Head And The Heart instantly kicked into gear, racing through much of their Heavenly Recordings-released self-titled debut album. After catching them in a tiny venue in Austin earlier this year’s SXSW, I was eager to see how they would fair in the might hall of Brixton Academy, but they filled the space with ease.
With tracks like Rivers And Roads in their back pocket, the eclectic and all-encompassing The Head And The Heart will have earned a lot of new fans from their 35-minute stint in South London. Packing a wide range on instruments on stage, their music feels individual and different, with two singers to add extra variation. Hopefully they’ll be back soon for a headline show of their own.
Oh, and Death Cab were incredible, but then you probably knew that without me telling you.