There's an unmistakable aura of self-fulfilling prophecy about Long-view, even if they can't seem to decide whether they really ought to be called Longview. Their debut album, Mercury, was formidably assured, splattered with such famous names from studio-land as sometime Pearl Jam producer Rick Parashar and veteran string arranger Paul Buckmaster. Evidently the Americans agree, since the band have been snapped up by Columbia in the US.
There's a touch of the epic in Rob McVey's songs, and it emerged on disc buffed and burnished to perfection. The band make a pretty good job of reproducing it on stage, and the songs soared from the PA with a grandeur one doesn't normally associate with the Scala. Thanks to various miracles of gadgetry, they sounded more like an electronic orchestra than a mere quartet, with layers of drones and overtones materialising mysteriously from the ether.
They carry distinct traces of bands from the north-west (some of the big, surging dynamics of the Verve, for instance), from whom they have apparently learned how to get the maximum impact from fairly simple resources. A new song, Jealousy, was distinguished by its dramatic ascending chord sequence, while Can't Explain is an astute demonstration of how to massage four chords into increasingly majestic shapes, culminating in a satisfyingly crowd-pleasing chorus. They saved Further for the encores, where its powerful churning motion and hovering air of menace brought the evening to a fittingly momentous climax.
Long-view are not quite the finished article yet. They've got the soaring, far-horizon stuff firmly nailed down, but their set cries out for a few more intimate pieces built on a less grand scale (McVey does pick up an acoustic guitar occasionally, but only as part of the all-embracing mega-mix). McVey isn't a particularly distinctive vocalist either, though since all four members are capable harmony singers, they have some resources to play with. All things considered, they are clear contenders in the Brits-most-likely-to stakes.
