I recall when I wrote my first Backspace review for my mates at Halfway 2 Nowhere, wayback in 2018 for the bands first single, I was completely taken with these young folks’ sense of space.

A pitfall of many a youthful inexperienced band is to try and fill every available space with sound. It already seemed clear that those Guiseley based boys and girls had a natural jazz sensibility, a great sense of beat, and a real image for what they wanted to sound like.

So marching towards 5 years on, there’s been a bit of a line up change, a few 18th birthdays for those youthful Backspace folk, and a few more (cough) grey hairs and aching bones for me.

While the Backspace sound is much more polished than those early tunes, the tone of the new single Come Round brings me right back to those memories of being astounded about how controlled this young band are. Backspace’s Come Round has a real quality swingy jazzy feel within an indie heart. Come Round may not be quite as immediate as their most recent banger Lottery of Life, but there is a stiller, deeper, richer thing going on.

Backspace have not let my initial enthusiasm about their sound down in the slightest. The band are fronted by Rosie Weston a real vocal force, and here her low key, late night delivery is perfectly pitched for the song.

The tune is a lock down based lyric, about missing friends and people. We all need that connection so there is a real shared chord here.

With that strong little bass line and clever smoking weaving guitar (Miles Addie (Bass), Harry Adams (Lead Guitar), Izzy Turner (Rhythm Guitar) and Alex Turner on drums make up the rest of the band), this is smoky jazz club stuff.

Once again Gus Turner at Gafro Studios produced this masterpiece, and while I more usually associate Gus’ production with crisp incisive indie, this more mellow rounded sound is another banger. I won’t dare count how many Gafro productions I’ve reviewed over the years, but I totally recommend their production style and methods (no I’ve not been paid haha).

Backspace are regular gig performers around Leeds, and are well worth a looksee. At the time of writing, the band’s next gigs are playing support to The Kites in the lovely concrete cellars of the Key Club on Saturday 29th April and then supporting Alex Tracey in the gods at Santiago Bar on the 28th May (both excellent Leeds town centre venues).

Words by Tiggerligger

* Images from the band’s own socials