Six Organs of Admittance @ Captain's Rest, 8 Jun

There's a sense of hushed anticipation in the Captain's Rest, prior to Ben Chasny's first Six Organs of Admittance show since the release of the critically-acclaimed Asleep on the Floodplain earlier this year. The atmosphere suits Fabrizio Palumbo, whose Labradford-esque guitar lines and soporific beats, overlaid with unearthly processed vocals, repay the attentiveness of the crowd.

The character of a Six Organs show can vary dramatically, depending on whether Chasny's set focuses on the fried electric soloing of the albums' noisier sections, or on his portfolio of haunting fingerpicked psych-folk. Floodplain is dominated by the latter, albeit with some electric embellishment, and tonight is accordingly downtempo, with Chasny deploying a single guitar and his unmistakably wistful voice.

The new material works well live, particularly the mournful Hold But Let Go. Yet perhaps the strongest tracks are from 2009's Luminous Night: Actaeon's Fall and Anaesthesia, with the instrumentation used on the LP stripped away, have a new spectral beauty in this context, demonstrating that Chasny's talents reach far beyond the role of acid-folk noisenik. Although the Six Organs project still seems oddly disparate, his performance tonight demonstrates that he has both the musicianship and vision needed to hold it all together. [Sam Wiseman]