CityLife

WHEN on arrival a venue poster informs you it’s going to be a tight squeeze tonight, it’s a fairly safe bet you’re about to catch a band on the rise.<br /> <br /> It’s all Jose Mourinho’s fault of course (yep, him again!), the swarthy former Chelsea boss’ over-indulgent bon-mots delivered on a Sky Sports HD advert have been soundtracked for weeks now by The Temper Trap’s pulsating, yet otherworldly Sweet Disposition, sweeping the Australian quartet into the national consciousness - well the satellite dish owning part of it anyway.<br /> <br /> Here as part of a UK tour of some of the nation’s more bijou venues, before more spacious auditoriums surely beckon, the Melbourne-formed four-piece sound as fully formed as any new outfit has a right to be.<br /> <br /> Of course when you possess a vocalist with a range as dextrous and histrionic as Indonesian ex-pat Dougy Mandagi, you’ve always got half a chance.<br /> <br /> Wonderfully complementing the atmospheric soundscapes expertly issued by lead guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto (which explains their apt choice to promote HD telly), by CityLife’s reckoning the axeman may have a copy of U2’s Joshua Tree knocking about his record collection such are The Edge-isms that pepper large swathes of their material.<br /> <br /> In fact Temper Trap’s greatest USP is that they don’t really sound like anything else out there now.<br /> <br /> Perhaps it’s the fact they honed their material away from the Australia’s western-leaning capital and the truckload of British and American acts whose music regular floods there, but their ultra-chilled out offerings, which occasionally swells to a dancey, Delphic-like crescendo is a breath of fresh air.<br /> <br /> Love Lost and Down To The River are both well-received by the vacuum-packed audience, but it is of course, Sweet Disposition which sees arms thrust a lost and even one overly willing participant to haul himself onto a mate’s shoulders – no mean feet considering the restrictive height of the Ruby Lounge’s ceiling.<br /> <br /> Unsure of how their debut Conditions would translate to a live setting, I was pleasantly surprised how beguiling it proved - although a couple of numbers did fall a little flat.<br /> <br /> One imagines with the right light show though, arenas - if the nation takes to them in the way many critics have predicted – would fall into Temper’s trap too.<br />