Next door, and the last stop of the night, GOLDHEART ASSEMBLY continued their residency downstairs at a pub called The Spice Of Life (the same, slightly tacky West End pub, where I first met Justine Frischman from Elastica, surrounded by tourists and day-trippers from the Suburbs).

Downstairs though, in a room which could have been tacked on to a Travel Lodge, the Assembly road-tested a series of new songs which they’ve been writing and recording in the run-up to unenviable task of ‘making the second record’ (an album which some of us have huge hopes for and others will once again brush aside, in favour of some bunch of languid American losers who walk with a musical limp).

It can’t be easy being Goldheart. Nothing is ever easy being Goldheart. But still they emerge smiling. No doubt buoyed by the new material (which is, in parts, really, VERY GOOD), they play for an hour, lobbing in some of the ones you might know: ‘King Of Rome’, ‘Engravers Daughter’ etc.

They are still dry and occasionally sarcastic; understated yet assured. They still ‘just like playing’. Wrapping those trademark tight harmonies around songs which nicely ebb and flow, they go searching for new ground; new gold. They bruise and they soothe.

It’s nice to have them back.

(Source: goingdeafforaliving.com)