Des Moines, Iowa’s Evelyn Taylor and Nicholas Frampton have just signed to the Bella Union label under their collective name Field Division. Appearing in stripped-down acoustic duo mode, (they sometimes tour with a band), their gentle harmonies and 12-string melodies bring to mind early period Mojave 3 or perhaps the underrated early 90s outfit Faith Over Reason and put in a well-received set of their own material with a cover of Fleetwood Mac‘s ‘Dreams’ thrown in for good measure.
Josh Rouse, meanwhile, is an artist who has quietly amassed an astonishing back catalogue over the last twenty years, and is in town to promote his newly-released twelfth album, Love In The Modern Age, which has taken him in a new, 80s synthpop direction while retaining his knack of writing wonderfully human songs.
There is a question, then, of how Rouse will incorporate those synth sounds into his usual guitars/bass/drums lineup. The answer is immediately apparent as sumptuous opener ‘Salton Sea’ arrives, (also the first song on the new album), and finds long-time guitarist supreme Xema Fuertes playing the keyboard sections on a tiny synth, and also managing to play his guitar in other sections of the songs. The new regime therefore doesn’t upset the band’s usual chemistry, which is one of warmth and genuine joy at playing Rouse’s music.
The first part of the show is heavy on the new record, with ‘Ordinary People’, one of Rouse’s trademark observational people-watching songs and ‘Women And The Wind’ sandwiching old favourite and mainstay of the Josh Rouse set ‘Come Back (Light Therapy)’ from the 2003 album 1972; it receives a fittingly warm welcome from the crowd in the excellent venue, which has shades of The Hacienda with its yellow and black striped pillars.
Rouse is a charmingly modest frontman and admits that he can’t remember playing Sheffield before when an audience member asks if he has missed the place. ‘Well, I haven’t played this venue anyway’, he back-pedals. ‘Oh, I have? Well I’ve had a couple of kids since then!’
The classics keep coming in the shape of Nashville’s lead track ‘It’s The Night Time’ and ‘1972’ before returning to the new album for the Blue Nile styled title track and the excellent new single ‘Businessman’, on which the audience, men and women alike, are invited to provide the missing female backing vocals of “24 hours a day”. It sounds like a big summer hit and is followed by another song that sounds like a big summer hit in 2006’s ‘It Looks Like Love’.
Bassist James Haggerty meanwhile provides the perfect foil to Rouse and Fuertes’ twin guitars and also manages to achieve that highly unusual feat of breaking one of his bass strings, which leads to an impromptu solo section from Rouse to cover for the repair time. The audience laps it up, getting a bonus Some Days I’m Golden All Night and Julie Come Out Of The Rain as a result.
The brilliantly catchy ‘Hollywood Bass Player’ from 2007’s Country Mouse, City House makes a welcome appearance before a Nashville double helping of the spellbinding ‘My Love Has Gone’ (in with a shout as Rouse’s greatest ever composition) and the 2004 single ‘Winter In The Hamptons’.
For the encore, Rouse reappears alone to play the affecting ‘Sad Eyes’, the band creeping back to join in for the song’s climax, and a beautiful version of the new album closer ‘There Was A Time’. A triumphant ‘Love Vibration’ is the final song in another great Josh Rouse performance. A stellar performance from consistently one of the very best songwriters out there.
Photo of Josh Rouse taken at High & Lonesome Festival in Leeds, November 2017