Gig review: Young Fathers at O2 Academy Leeds

Industrial bass, hip hop rap, gospel vocals, thumping drums shudder Leeds through the 80-minute set.

It’s a restrained start, the backdrop curtain askew as the band of three enter with a cappella entry intro into Get Up, building to a natural crescendo.

It’s a pattern that is repeated throughout the evening, frequently driven by Kayus Bankole, a whirling dervish covering all four corners of the stage in ever increasing states of toplessness.

When it works, and it on the whole does, it’s astonishing. The alchemy of the genres gelling perfectly, each track having its own driving rhythm engine. There are fleeting points where the mix appears slightly awry, sounding like three people singing different tracks but they are just that, fleeting.

Small talk is not just kept to a minimum, it’s eliminated completely. Young Fathers have their own version, Bankhole glaring and holding the gaze of the crowd, eliciting a response before the band explode into a frenetic version of Drum.

The set is nicely balanced over all four albums and one EP, demonstrating the consistently high levels of the Edinburgh trio have mastered since winning the Mercury Prize in 2014. The latest release Heavy Heavy spawned four of the tracks tonight, all sounding like they could have come from any point in their career.

The biggest reactions will always be reserved for the stand out tracks from Cocoa Sugar, In My View, Wow and Toy all making their regular appearances. Toy especially is the classic set closer, steadily brewing until it reaches the energetic, vigorously animated crescendo.

Achieving this must have been draining as the Young Fathers leave the stage as innocuously as they arrived, leaving only Graham ‘G’ Hastings to oversee a huge level of electronic feedback, blue strobe lights emphasising his glare into the audience.

And then he’s gone, the crowd not immediately realising that the set is over.

Seeking to pigeonhole Young Fathers is a futile exercise, far easier to just to let them take you with them on wherever it is they’re heading. You might emerge a bit battered and bruised, bewildered even, but energised, exultant and victorious at the same time, and that’s a good place to be.