Fallen Leaves - What We’ve All Been Waiting For album review

In Soho, co-led by original Subway Sect guitarist Rob Symmons, The Fallen Leaves are keeping alive a tiny flame at clubs like the St Moritz, a flicker that in the headier 60s heyday of The Who was a firestorm. They are among the last expert brewers of white, guitar-based R&B, served with a unique shot of ironic enervation, personified in Rob Green’s vocals. A deep consciousness that all they can hope to do is survive touchingly pervades this album, and is a strength of sorts. From the strange, tingling menace of Funny World to the wistful gaze of Motorcycle Girl there is a sense that they inhabit a changing city in which the tenets of unadorned, “minimal R&B” are vanishing fast. When they go, so will a better part of London, you feel. Catch them while you can.