The Dears: Porchester Hall, London

A WEST LONDON HALL that advertises itself as the ideal spot for weddings and birthday parties is a perverse place to find the Dears, a band who exist to count the many ways life gives singer Murray Lightburn a raw deal. There is never a moment during this set, which promotes the Montreal septet's sixth album, Missiles, when Lightburn seems ready to lay down his alienation and kick up his heels. He stands front and centre, singing in a windswept baritone that evokes desolate midnight moors. If it were not for his leather jacket, he would make a great Heathcliff.