Tired of the tour/record/tour cycle and the excesses that go with it, many bands have later been known to wax balefully about how they should have taken a year off and regrouped instead of splitting due to what seemed irreconcilable differences at the time.
Never ones to be drawn towards convention, though, Nottingham's broody heroes TINDERSTICKS did the sensible thing and didn't actually split up after 2003's – with-hindsight - perhaps slightly generic 'Waiting For The Moon'. They simply put their mission on ice for a time that suited the participants and waited to see what would happen.
That wilderness period drifted on to almost five years, in which time frontman Stuart Staples moved to France and recorded a couple of solo albums which sounded, er, pretty much like Tindersticks albums and featured contributions from pianist Dave Boulter and guitarist Neil Fraser. Not too surprisingly, this trio would finally reconvene as the creative core behind the 'Sticks' re-emergence with 2008's 'The Hungry Saw': not only a comeback, but up there with the band's magnificent first two albums. The game was and is indeed back on, it seems.
It's a feeling that can only be enhanced by this fine reading of album highlight 'Boobar Come Back To Me' from their triumphant Royal Festival Hall: a song which finds the Tindersticks back at their soulful, heartstring-tugging best and wowing the crowd with the arcing, weeping strings and Boulter's gorgeously tremulous organ.
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For good measure, we also get a splendidly haunting, French-language re-recording of fellow album highlight 'All The Love', or 'Tout L'Amour' as it appears now. Sure, the Tindersticks are ideal Gallic favourites and describing their music always presents opportunities to ream off cliches involving Gauloise smoke drifting around the alleys of Montmartre. Even allowing for this, though, 'Tout L'Amour' is magnificent stuff, all gossamer sparseness and whispered secrets. In fact, it comes as no great surprise to discover Stuart and co. have already embarked on two new OST projects with director Claire Denis, which will surely give their atmospheric instrumental tendencies full rein.
So yeah, not only a great re-emergence, but the sound of the Tindersticks' proverbial second wind gathering force? You'd be a fool to bet against it on this form.
(http://www.tindersticks.co.uk)
(http://www.myspace.com/tindersticksofficial)
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