★★★★

FEAR of Men have recently returned from an extensive tour of Europe but the Brighton band showed no signs of fatigue at Patterns.

Opener Island, from newest album Fall Forever, set the tone for a set that was occasionally heavy in texture yet also light on its feet.

Michael Mills’s flitting drums complemented the subtle soundscape conjured by Daniel Falvey’s distorted guitar and Helen Ganya Brown’s sweeping synth lines.

Frontwoman Jessica Weiss isn’t playing guitar on stage these days, and her newfound freedom worked nicely with her words here. Emotionally intimate but somehow also slightly remote, her live demeanour is a juxtaposition which is also manifest in Island’s lyrics. “I’m like an Island/I don’t need to feel your arms around me.”

New song Trauma was an unsettling highlight, the sense of lurking, well, trauma, providing a counterpoint to an affecting chorus harmony. The band’s ear for an understated pop hook could be evidenced throughout the set.

The second half of the gig showcased songs from Fear of Men’s debut album, Loom, and Descent was a standout, the uplifting melody again clashing with an impending sense of relationship doom. “There is a sickness in our path/that keeps me from your door.”

Closer Inside went some way to undermining the reductive notion that Loom can be characterised as ‘jangly’. It built to a cacophony of crashing drums and shimmering guitar. Soon to head off on a US tour, it doesn’t seem as though Fear of Men’s momentum will be curbed anytime soon.