A Winged Victory for the Sullen @ St Philip's Church, Salford, 14 Dec

In attendance at a Cinematic Orchestra show a few weeks back, something was amiss at the Albert Hall. It was well oversold – people were spilling out into the stairwells – and largely populated by a boozy, badly behaved Friday-night crowd who were evidently only there to hear To Build a Home and who talked loudly and obnoxiously over everything else. Put it this way: it’s a sad state of affairs when a band has to shush their own audience.

A Winged Victory for the Sullen, like The Cinematic Orchestra, are the kind of band that need to be able to suspend the crowd’s awareness of their surroundings and summon up genuine, palpable atmosphere if they’re to be properly appreciated. If they’d had to wrangle with this mob at the Albert Hall, the show would have been a write-off. Mercifully, the sell-out throng at one of Salford’s hidden gems, the gorgeous St Philip’s Church, are infinitely more civilised, and as much credit should go the band themselves for delivering the kind of tour de force that demands rapt and undivided attention.

Speaking of hidden gems, 2014‘s Atomos LP was one of the year’s most scandalously underrated; it is an enthralling, beautifully constructed succession of suites, aired tonight in its entirety. There are no breaks. Even polite applause, you feel, would irreparably puncture the reverential air that takes hold disarmingly quickly. Stars of the Lid’s Adam Wiltzie sits at the piano; Dustin O’Halloran, his collaborator in Winged Victory, is on multi-instrumental duty. A cellist and two violin players provide the mournful scatter of strings that is such a key part of the group. 

The lighting is subtle, but striking – the group are backlit, and dry ice is dispensed liberally. Winged Victory are a difficult group to pin any specific genre tag to, and similarly, it’s difficult to pick out specific highlights from a set that’s designed for you to get lost in. What’s telling, though, is this: as Wiltzie briefly thanks those gathered at the evening’s conclusion, there’s compelling evidence that it’s been a mutually moving experience for artist and spectator. [Joe Goggins]