Live Review: Fleet Foxes, Gordi

Gordi deploys her surprisingly deep voice over strummed acoustic guitar, mangled keyboard chords and vocoder-heavy vocal loops. She achieves this amalgamation of folk and electronic elements on brooding songs like On My Side and Heaven I Know with the ease of an artist who came of age when Bon Iver was tinkering with AutoTune. A foreboding cover of Courtney Barnett's Avant Gardener highlights the fact that Barnett's delightful tune is actually about a panic attack.

Fleet Foxes begin their set with the opening one-two punch of I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar and Cassius,- from last year's excellent Crack-Up album. These songs showcase the resplendent rise and fall this band is capable of. The contrast between new and old material is amplified in the live setting; the new stuff is less interested in pure beauty. Early songs like Mykonos and White Winter Hymnal seem so simple alongside these knottier, more mercurial compositions. All songs are played with the renewed sense of purpose of a band back from the brink.

Since the departure of drummer Josh Tillman (better known now as Father John Misty), the harmonies have thinned out slightly, but Matt Barrick (formerly of The Walkmen) is a stronger, more precise drummer, which suits Fleet Foxes as they stray further from their folky roots. On new songs like Mearcstapa there isn't an acoustic guitar in sight. The band moves deftly through the setlist, with plenty of songs transitioning straight into the next. Little about tonight's set feels spontaneous, which is understandable given the scope and intricacy of the arrangements. Multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson is a joy to watch as he hops between double bass, flute, saxophone, tuba and all manner of unusual percussion instruments.

The set climaxes transcendentally with Third Of May/Odaigahara transitioning straight into The Shrine/An Argument, complete with its tetchy saxophone solo. Oliver James is stunningly beautiful, almost enough to make a fan yearn for the early days when Robin Pecknold would simply strum an acoustic guitar and spin a yarn about a kitchen table that your grandfather did make (and also a young boy drowning).

The set closes with the rousing and astounding Helplessness Blues, in which Pecknold fantasises about giving up his music career to work his hands raw on an orchard. With an artist as preternaturally talented as Pecknold, we can only hope he will continue to share, however sporadically, his melodic and musical gifts.