Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

Four years is a long time in the indie world. Acoustic activist and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly mastermind Sam Duckworth was one of the great success stories of 2006, much being made of his stripped-down live performances, which generally comprised little more than Duckworth, an acoustic guitar and a laptop. Fast-forward to the present day, however, and we find a very different act. Now performing with a full band and on the verge of releasing his third album, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly have lost much of the DIY charm that made their name.

The bulk of tonight's set is material from the new album, unfortunately. The band is hamstrung by the general weakness of the songs. Lead single 'Collapsing Cities' is an exception, with its dominant acoustic guitar melody and trumpeted punctuation, but it's a temporary reprieve. Mostly, the band's latest work seems to follow a distinct formula: quiet acoustic intro, suddenly interrupted by a thudding, overblown electro-rock verse and bleeding into a suitably melodic chorus. Worse still is the lack of charisma onstage; what motion there is feels more like posturing than actual dynamism, and only when Duckworth launches into an extended diatribe on immigration policy does he show any real personality.

It's a disappointing showcase, but not a lethal one. When the band turn their hands to older material in the form of 'The Oak Tree' and 'The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager, Part 1', both they and the audience seem to suddenly find an energy lacking from the rest of the performance. Get Cape's problem tonight is not that it was a bad performance, just a brutally uneven one. Perhaps it's time for Duckworth to consider a return to his laptop.