Live Review: Glass Animals, Zaped

Seems as though Glass Animals' appearance on triple j's Like A Version this morning hasn't harmed ticket sales, with plenty of bodies rocking along to support act Zaped. The local bloke responsible for the lush sounds, Jordan Depas, has called on an additional set of hands to give the bass lines extra kick, and the end result is a sound that sits somewhere between Flume, Disclosure and Chet Faker – it's future groove with intelligence and character, but when Depas gets physical on the drum pads he underpins it all with focused energy. Still Awake and Feeling make it clear that Zaped is a project we're going to be hearing a whole lot more of soon, while a cover of White Town's awkward pop masterstroke Your Woman makes this reviewer nostalgic for late-'90s high school discos and Kirov-driven screwdrivers.

Although the hyperbolic claims have been fairly absent from the press, we might finally have a natural successor to the halcyon nu-rave days of '07. What are Glass Animals bringing to the party? Let's call it 'smart disco', and let's also go on the record here and say that the kids are fucking ready for it. The Oxfordshire-based quartet don't have much to draw from – they still haven't even dropped a debut record – so opening with Psylla, one of their biggest tracks, is a bit surprising; however, it works well, the set moving fluidly from there.

Closed in by a semi-circle made up of his three bandmates, frontman Dave Bayley is the unassuming star, holding lurching poses like a puppet on a string, his voice soulful and well enounced. As he moves hypnotically the band build the tracks up with simplicity and understatement, driving them with nothing more than a basic note progression on keys or guitar. Songs like Black Mambo and Cocoa Hooves work so well because they invite you in, rather than reaching out for you, and it means that we, the dancing masses, are absorbed inside the performance. Glass Animals are connecting with us on a deeper level.

Then expectedly, and kinda sadly when you consider the young band have got some absolute gems in their own canon, the crowd goes batshit crazy when the group kick off their encore with their cover from earlier today, Kanye West's Love Lockdown. The way Bayley has moved the vocal off the drum beat means the track has its own identity away from the original, though the fact he needs a lyric sheet is pretty disappointing. They're then quick to ride the rapture in the room, following up with Gooey to sign things off, the soft, sensual tones drifting with us out into the night.