ANNA CALVI

VENUE THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON

DATE 07/02/2019

For most of this decade, anna Calvi has been one of those genre-confounding artists who gather critical acclaim, award nominations and general respect without quite breaking through to the big league. Hunter, last year’s third album, seems to have provided that final push. tonight a sold-out roundhouse witnesses a ferocious performance in which she utilises her customary live flair to deliver a show that’s equal parts high drama and filthy rock squall. Her ice-and-fire persona is bolstered further by confidence and an awestruck audience. Calvi is a cut above as a singer, a guitarist and, at last, a star.

the atmosphere is accentuated by striking lighting that floods the hall with burning reds and dazzling white strobes, often rendering Calvi as a mysterious feline silhouette. Leaving her two musicians holding the fort on stage, she prowls the raised walkway that extends into the crowd. She shifts between postures akin to flamenco performers and opera divas then launches into axe-hero dynamics that both homage and satirise the phallic oriented cliché of the rock god.

as the evening evolves, Calvi goes from on-her-knees shredding to, by the climax, writhing on the ground with her guitar, wailing in a primal scream. all this isn’t quite feral: she’s too clever and studied a musician to go that far. She knows how to locate new sounds within her map of art-rock, goth, Bad Seedsstyle garage and film noir tropes. the wow factor is increased by that voice, leaping gracefully from subtle intrigue to histrionic holler. jeff Buckley comparisons are not over the top: this is a one-woman force of nature, a slash of scarlet in a monochrome world, an emotional bonfire lit under the banal.

there are many active themes here: her probing of gender issues, her wish to question, feminise and elevate the classic role of the rock star onstage. it might lapse into the academic if her songs didn’t have their own sultry fierceness. the tense torch-fever of indies Or Paradise and as a man mix theatricality and thrills; Swimming Pool glistens with suspense. Her ‘oldies’ like Desire and Suzanne and i pulse with nocturnal neuroses, while the final throbbing encore of Suicide’s Ghost rider is demonic, Calvi appearing to make a sacrifice of her guitar to pagan gods. She’s a phenomenon.