Turin Brakes finish their Wide-Eyed Nowhere tour at The Wedgewood Rooms: 'Stunning, heart-aching songs' | Review

It was not a choice I regretted. As a result I was keen to catch them again when they were due to come to The Wedge last December.

Sadly, illness in the band meant it was postponed and the rescheduled date was eventually tacked right on the end of the tour for their most recent release, Wide-Eyed Nowhere.

That album is well represented in the set, including opener Isolation, which sets out their stall. Frontman Olly Knights’ keening, distinctive voice wrings the emotion out of every last note, while Gale Paridjanian plays the understated guitar hero. Meanwhile, fantastically hirsute bassist Eddie Myer appears to have wondered in from a metal band, cutting a gleeful figure as he poses foot on monitor.

Once lumped in with the early noughties ‘new acoustic movement’, the four-piece left that tag behind long ago – there may indeed still be acoustic-led, quieter numbers in the set (Future Boy is one such gem), but their sound is on the whole much more electric, in every sense, than that moniker allowed.

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And it may be coronation day, but it is only referenced in oblique passing here. When Knights is having a good-natured exchange with a fan being ‘down with the kids’, the fan shoots back: ‘I’m not Prince Andrew!’ to which Knights replies amid laughter: ‘I am not even going to go near that...’

Drummer Rob Allum is brought out from behind the kit to join in some gorgeous four-part harmonies on set highlight, We Were Here.

The main set closes with Black Rabbit, its hushed opening section is heavy on the atmospherics before exploding into an ecstatic guitar wig-out. While this would have been a fine place to leave things, there are still a couple of their best-known tracks to play. Of course they come back for an encore.

Underdog (Save Me) has the sold-out room singing along. It is beautiful, but after an additional three songs they’re still not done – they come back for two more, a sublime Feeling Oblivion and the rolling groove of Slack finally brings things to a close.

While bothering the upper-reaches of the charts may be behind them, Turin Brakes still clearly have a devoted following, and with such stunning, heart-aching songs at their disposal, long may it keep them going.