Angels back in groove

The Comsat Angels

Academy 3, Manchester
“WE don’t normally get this,” says singer Steven Fellows, leaving the stage to loud cheers.

His band, The Comsat Angels, have just played to a small but devoted following, and the adulation they’ve received on this brief comeback tour seems to have come as a welcome surprise.

Back in the early 1980s, this Sheffield quartet were the equal of any northern gloom-rock, so-called “trenchcoat” bands that emerged in the immediate wake of Joy Division.

Despite acclaim and support gigs to a fledgling U2, they managed to slip through the grid of mass popularity, and their loyal fans still wonder why.

They’ve reunited for only three UK gigs, and they’re growing old with a certain grace — in his suit and open-necked orange shirt, Fellows resembles Duncan Bannatyne’s cooler brother.

The set is largely drawn from their first three albums which defined their sound — “Waiting for a Miracle”, “Sleep No More” and “Fiction” — a post-punk melancholia with strong melodies, chiming guitar and a bass drawn from the sea bed.

Perhaps the brevity of the tour is to blame, but it takes a while for both the band and the sound to gel. Only when they arrive at the droning “Postcard” does everything click, and from then on they deliver a series of home runs, from the near-hit “Independence Day” to newer material “Driving” and “Valley of the Nile”.

They close with the glorious failed love song “What Else?!”, and you wonder if this is a last hurrah or the start of a long-awaited new chapter.

There's no doubt what the audience, hoping that time will yet show the wiser, wants.