The Cathode Ray

With The Letting Go

Nice’n’Sleazy, 15 August 2025

The Cathode Ray and a happy series of circumstances.

Serendipity can be a wonderful thing at times. You become a member of a record label, in this instance Last Night From Glasgow who have been furnishing you with any number of great albums for the past few years.

One night you pick out an LP from the collection and can’t remember whether you’ve played it or not before. A couple of tracks in and you’re on the internet searching for more information about the band, what other albums have they produced and if, when and where they might be playing live.

Serendipity then scores a second goal that night as you find the band are due to play in a couple of months’ time in Nice’n’Sleazy, better still it’s a free gig night in the calendar for you…..so far and tickets are duly bought, the gig diary is updated and, when the night arrives, you head to the venue in the hope the band might deliver something equivalent to what came across the stereo speakers several months previously.

By the time the gig comes around, the album – Advance Retreat has been on regular airplay with 2019 release Heightened Senses added to the collection in the weeks before, confirming that the band had talent in abundance. The song writing is beautifully crafted, the production delivers the right amount of pleasure without feeling overbearing. The level of expectation continues to rise.

There have been more than a few gigs over the past couple of years as part of our #AtoZMusicalTour, however few have matched the crispness of delivery from all sides. David Mack’s drumming is steady, working in tandem with bass player Sean Allison, playing his first gig with the band, to create the rhythm that then allows Phil Biggs to shine on lead guitar. Centre stage though is songwriter, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Jeremy Toms with the stage presence to deliver a masterful performance. Cool, calm, collected, hitting the high and low notes without ever having to compromise.

Whoever set up the sound desk on Friday deserves an award as each instrument, each change in the tonal direction of Jeremy’s vocals proved crystal clear. No fuzz to hide the flaws, nothing overbearing and drowning out one of the other instruments.

It may be 2025, however there is more than a hint that the music is looking back to the late eighties and early nineties, where indie rock often met and delivered classic pop tunes. From start to finish, we were treated to perfectly formed melodies and, even allowing for the occasional musical flourish, the songs rarely lasted more than five minutes.

The set began with album opener No Certain Terms, ending with What’s It All About. Two bookends to the gig which were figuratively speaking straining at the seams as we listened to a further dozen tracks of pure quality, delivered by consummate musicians.

The only possible disappointment for the band would have been the small audience that were lucky enough to give up their Friday night to come and see them.

I can confirm that serendipity does work in strange and wonderous ways and would thoroughly recommend anyone to listen to their music (see the playlist here), or better still go see them play live. You won’t be disappointed.

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Support – The Letting Go

It can be a tight fit getting everyone on stage comfortably at Nice’N’Sleazy and, by the time the band had picked up their instruments, it was pretty clear that their starting position was likely to be their closing one too.

With the opportunity to blend trumpet, keyboards and backing vocals to the standard bass, drums, lead and rhythm guitars and vocals, their songs managed to capture the essence harvested from a number of influences from Orange Juice to Lloyd Cole And The Commotions via The Smiths and several others along the way.

Vocalist Neil Crossan has a long history of playing with several independent bands in Scotland and the songwriting collaborations during this set, allied to the quality of those behind and to the side of him provided a well rounded sound to the songs played. While the song topics were varied, it would be fair to suggest that uplifting high-tempo tracks may not ben on the horizon anytime soon.

A good opener that set us up perfectly for The Cathode Ray.