Broken Bells

There are, no doubt, more screamingly obvious band misnomers (the Pop Group perhaps take the top spot with their post-punk racket), but the collaboration between Gnarls Barkley wunder-producer Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins really is a long way from the smashed discordance that their name suggests. Tonight the pair are joined by five other band members to deliver their melodious, neatly constructed songs against a backdrop of sympathetically glowing circles, splodges and gently spinning geometric shapes. Danger Mouse, as audacious a producer as they come, is conspicuously bashful on stage while Mercer is a quietly assured presence, short on chat if liberal with the grateful nods and appreciative beer-bottle salutes to the Royal Festival Hall's enormous – and rightfully enamoured – audience. Just one eponymous album necessitates a roaming off the tracklisting and they oblige with a gorgeous cover of Tommy James's 1969 hit Crimson and Clover, announced with an ectastic, half-sung "ah!" from Mercer. A rendition of Insane Lullaby takes on extra poignancy when Mercer reminds us that it was written with Mark Linkous for the album Dark Night of the Soul, which Danger Mouse made with the much-loved Sparklehorse musician prior to his death earlier this year. When the band swing into the winning grooves of Vaporize, a scattering of people rise from their seats to sway along before being gently tugged back down by their abashed mates. This seems to sum up a project whose songs have a tendency to wind down into loping, head-nodding choruses – particularly The High Road with its singalong ending. For all the pair's talents and these tracks' strengths, Broken Bells are eminently easy to sway and smile to, but full on adoring or dancing might be forcing things. That said, after they finish with the heartbreaking The Mall and the Misery, most of the audience are on their feet to applaud. Broken Bells performed at Richard Thompson's Meltdown on 21 June.