The The, Edinburgh review: 'the wilderness years fell away'

The The frontman Matt Johnson enshrined the art of procrastination in his 2017 documentary film The Inertia Variations but the wilderness years fell away at the Usher Hall on Wednesday night as he returned with full band, including some old soldiers, to play two hefty sets to mark the release of Ensoulment.

This first new The The album in a quarter of a century was performed in its entirety in the first half, dubbed “the listening set” by Johnson, who politely requested full audience immersion. It’s a long but rewarding album, exuding Johnson’s familiar prowling urban blues sound on the autobiographical Some Days I Drink My Coffee by the Grave of William Blake.

Linoleum Smooth to the Stockinged Foot, inspired by a recent hospital stay, was arrayed with bowed and wah wah guitar, Kissing the Ring of POTUS with falsetto backing vocals and warm electric piano tones and the indie vaudeville of I Hope You Remember (The Things I Can’t Forget) – a cautious ode to AI – with an audience clapalong.

The capacity crowd were then suitably primed for “the dancing set” of fan favourites, which opened with the fidgety clatter of Infected. The following industrial funk of Armageddon Days Are Here (Again) was just one example of Johnson’s ability to write prescient political anthems.

Likewise, Heartland, a deft and devastating soulful portrait of Britain under Margaret Thatcher, had obvious 21st century resonances.

Just as potent were his teenage bedsit odes, especially Icing Up, the oldest song on show, from debut album Burning Blue Soul, described by Johnson as “a very psychedelic album from a very strange kid on nothing stronger than orange juice”, while the cuts from his 1983 follow-up Soul Mining, including a twinkling This Is The Day and an exultant Uncertain Smile, were among the most rapturously received of the night.