Pop: The Pigs are flying

LONGPIGS LIQUID ROOMS, EDINBURGH

IT WAS their timing that was wrong. With the likes of Cast, Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker all basking in the post-Oasis haze and releasing records as vapid as boiled cabbage, Longpigs found themselves suffocated by mediocrity. As a result, their debut LP The Sun is Often Out became one of the most scandalously overlooked albums of 1996 and the band, determined to make the best of a bad deal, toured themselves into the ground. What makes it all the more galling is that the singer Crispin Hunt has all the colour and vitality of a true pop hero, even if he has just pulled his clothes from a recycling bin.

One thing the band gathered in abundance, though, was loyalty. Their Edinburgh show is their first in two years but the impressive turn-out would suggest that they haven't been forgotten. Hunt's presence pervades every bit of the stage, leaving the rest of the band lurking deferentially in the shadows. When he stares disdainfully into the middle distance with those beady, brown eyes, you don't know whether to gaze back in awe or give him a slap. It is clear that the audience are longing to hear the familiar numbers, but they are made to wait. Happily, songs from the band's forthcoming album, Mobile Home, display the punishing intensity of the old days, but they are tempered by slower-burning and more wistful melodies. "Baby Blue" strikes an exquisite balance of frailty and operatic melodrama, while "The Frank Sonata" is every bit as louche and lovely as its namesake. And despite Hunt's bizarre declaration that he is always lying to women, there is a lyrical tenderness to "I Lied, I Love You".

These are epic elegies and, if Hunt's conversation sometimes seems flimsy, he makes up for it with the astonishing expressiveness in his singing. The crowd are rewarded for their patience as Longpigs perform the old rabble-rousers "She Said", "Lost Myself" and the monumental "Jesus Christ". It's enough to make you want to campaign against a musical climate that deprived the world of these songs three years ago, but at least we have the knowledge that now, for Longpigs, it's just a matter of time.

Fiona Sturges