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Beth Gibbons review – an unapologetically intense triumph
Folk, classical and jazz textures from a quietly stellar band back the singer’s elegant, swooping voice on an almighty debut tour
Eyes shut, feet bare, with the stage in virtual darkness, singer Beth Gibbons clings to her microphone stand as though to a sapling in a gale, a veil of blond hair periodically falling across her face. Both this short set of dates – and her new album Lives Outgrown – are extra-special because of Gibbons’s bitty and sporadic engagement with the limelight since Portishead’s heyday; the band last toured a decade ago before reuniting briefly for a Ukraine benefit in 2022. For Sale, a heavy folk song not a million miles from PJ Harvey, features what sound like bicycle bells while Lost Changes ends on men whistling – a little gaiety piercing the penumbral atmosphere now and again.
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