Music review: Sacred Paws, St Luke’s, Glasgow

Rachel Aggs of Sacred Paws PIC: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

Banish the Brexit blues on an aural holiday with Sacred Paws, who delivered a seamless blend of free-spirited post-punk and summery Ghanaian highlife so infectious that frontwoman Rachel Aggs was practically airborne, high-kicking her way through the set and bouncing on her toes to her own lithe guitar lines.

Sacred Paws, St Luke’s, Glasgow ****

Aggs couldn’t stop smiling as she and her drumming wingwoman Eilidh Rodgers traded precision-tooled vocal lines on the aptly named The Conversationor presided over the eminently danceable likes of Shame On Me.

Both tracks feature on their bright, breezy, buoyant second album, Run Around the Sun, which complements and builds on their Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning debut, Strike A Match, with ever more confident songwriting and liberated playing.

Live, they were a sonic tonic. How Far, about long distance relationships, was as contemplative as they go, while the more strident spiky punk pop of Write This Down was leavened by the dexterous and celebratory Afro funk trills of second guitarist Jack Mellin who, along with Moe Meade on bass, added finely wrought layers without cluttering the sound.

Aggs and Rodgers also delivered a couple of nimble numbers in their original guitar/drums set-up, with pincer vocals, blithe power and joyful abandon reminiscent of their femme punk favourites The Raincoats.

As the set careered to a conclusion with the sheer Afrobeat irresistibility of Strike A Match, the dancing on and off stage became more ecstatic and the rock solid Rodgers was so transported that she tipped over on her drum stool, swept along by the untrammelled spirit of the show. - Fiona Shepherd