Two nights earlier I'd seen Morrissey, resplendent in tux and dickie, at the home of British Light Entertainment that is The London Palladium. He and his band stood at the front of the stage soaking up the crowd's adulation like a load of old luvvies. And this wasn't any old adulation - this was adulation of giant proportions. Two nights later, The Nightingales play a small, seedy, basement club in Liverpool in front of a small hardcore following. It's hard to believe now that when I first heard The Smiths debut single, Hand In Glove, all those years ago that I tipped Morrissey and his former cohorts to be 'The new Nightingales'! But whilst even the firmest Moz basher would probably concede that he has achieved fame (and adulation!) on his own terms, The Nightingales have taken the word 'uncompromising' to another level.
From the very start, this set was about Lloyd spouting his border-line surrealism over intricate little riffs playing against each other, just as the old Don used to do. They ended with a rollicking rendition of their excellent new rockabilly styled single, 'Let's Think About Living', which in an ideal world would be troubling the charts as we speak. Indeed, if they persisted with this more Nightingale-lite style they'd no doubt be playing bigger venues, but then they wouldn't be half as interesting. Forget all these NME Band of the Week types, who make out they don't care, they won't compromise, etc, whilst wearing the same indie uniform and churning out the same tired old riffs. They don't need your attention. The Nightingales do. Because rock'n'roll rarely gets as uncompromising as this. - PLASTELIN
Last time I saw the Nightingales in 2005 their set was looser and full of interruptions. This time, they worked a Ramones model: one cut lead directly into another, the intensity never let up, and the drummer never stopped. It was blistering, confrontational, and threatening. It wasn't quite out of control you could tell from the look in Lloyd's eye that he was still very much running the show but it felt a little bit dangerous, and you don't see that at rock shows much anymore. - POP MATTERS
The show in Brooklyn two weeks ago at Death by Audio was pure fireworks of rhythm, rhyme and frantic melodies, swirling around the serenading, barking, burping, howling Lloyd. The band has been touring extensively and is vehemently tight - captivating from the first manic beats to the last stroke - ROMAN GAMES BLOG
I'd been warned that Nightingales leader Robert Lloyd could be incredibly mercurial, and I was more than a little worried we'd be catching the band on an off night. (This after hearing that their NYC-area shows had been consistently incendiary.) Well, I needn't have bothered, because from the moment Lloyd stepped in to the spotlight on that tiny stage, there was no let-up. Thankfully the band was more than up to the task of keeping up with his funny, self-deprecating, always splenetic brand of rat-at-at talk-rant (stylistically more cohesive than Mark E Smith's, but with the same level of lacerating bile). They alternated easily between locked-groove jangle and more caustic guitar workouts. Drummer and percussionist Daren Garatt (ex of Pram) was amazing to watch when he came offstage I was surprised to see that he didn't, in fact, have eight arms. - WARPED REALITY
The Nightingales turn out to be bleedin' mesmerising. Theirs is a driving force of sound full of threatening rumbles and fearsome glints, it feels intense and unstoppable. Robert Lloyd cuts a commanding dash, looming across the squiddly stage, growling out the words, staring out the room. They show up today's runty excuses of art rockers for the soiled bags of old washing that they are. - KITTEN PAINTING
The Nightingales best material is delivered with a driving, manic intensity, that makes them sound like The Fall covering Captain Beefheart. Their execution is sharper now but they haven't lost their nervy edge - CHICAGO READER
