"YOU can get away with murder in pop music," according to The Feeling's singer and songwriter Dan Gillespie Sells.

"We like getting away with murder. We like great big choruses with great big hooks."

If writing sparkling, sun-drenched, festival-sized anthems is considered murder, then perhaps Sussex quintet The Feeling are guilty of the perfect crime.

In the limelight for less than six months and already a serial support slot and last night in Ardwick it was easy to see why.

The radio-friendly singles Sewn (which surely features the most enunciated 'headlock' in history) and Fill My Little World were ably backed up by the charming Bluetones-tinged Helicopter and ode to the power of alcohol, Rosé.

Expect their forthcoming LP, 12 Stops And Home, to play an integral part in this summer's soundtrack.

Perhaps aware they were in danger of straying into the same tepid waters musically that the Rolling Stones have largely inhabited for the last 20years, The Charlatans wisely decided a change of tack was record for their new and ninth LP, Simpatico.

As like their musical heroes, who they are set to support (Keith Richards' recovery permitting) later this year, The Charlatans are now more revered for their live work than their studio output.

Bravery

And while their experimentation with ska, white reggae and soul on the new album is sublime and ridiculous in equal measure, you have to tip your hat to the sheer bloody mindedness and bravery of it all.

On last night's evidence the new material fits snugly into their live set too. Bathed in atmospheric lighting, For Your Entertainment and When The Lights Go Out In London (about last year's terrorist attacks) worked particularly well.

But when you have got their back catalogue ready and waiting in the cannon, playing new material can be a tad futile so as soon as rip-roaring anthems like One To Another, North Country Boy and perhaps their best song to date, Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over, were unleashed the audience quickly turned to putty in evergreen frontman Tim Burgess' hands.

The sheer volume of cracking material available to the quintet, now amazingly in their 16th year, meant that they could wheel out hit after hit and still save the brooding Up At The Lake and the pulsating Sproston Green for the encore too.

One thing's for sure ? those heading along tonight for the last date of the tour are in for quite a treat.

Charlatans? Ironically Burgess and the boys have always been the real deal.

Five stars

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