Anna Calvi belongs to a category of uncategorisable singer-songwriters. This label could also be applied to St Vincent, Julia Holter, Bat for Lashes, Feist and Jenny Hval – musicians who march to the beats of their own drums, neither adhering particularly closely to rock and indie traditions, nor truly qualifying as pop (their music isn’t as dumbly infectious or popular enough for that).
In a world of songs machine-tooled for Spotify playlist approval, this kind of idiosyncrasy is only to be applauded. But it does mean Calvi can prove a rather hard sell to the casual observer: a guitarist and singer who makes unrushed, elegiac songs sheathed in a jazz-club smokiness that often simmer with sensuality. But this evening – one of five European shows designed to preview her forthcoming third album, Hunter – her music proves easier to digest. Proceedings begin with the cave-like interior of London’s Heaven bathed in red. Calvi, in a black suit, white ankle boots and shiny red bandeau, stands at the end of a runway that juts out from the main stage, splitting the audience in two. It’s a simple, beautiful image that is also expertly designed for a visually arresting Instagram post – a sense cemented by the swathes of people with phones jostling for the perfect shot.
Throughout the show, Calvi uses the runway as a spotlight, returning to its tip for moments of melodrama. On new song Indies Or Paradise she saunters down it to screamingly shred on her guitar as a retina-destroying light show plays in the background. On Alpha, also from Hunter, she hurls her instrument around her torso as it crashes and shrieks. At other moments, the guitar whirs, wheezes and wails while Calvi looks and sounds as if she’s trying to hold a panicked cat in her arms.
Hunter’s lead single is Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy, the latest in a series of tracks confronting gender – her debut included I’ll Be Your Man and the erotically charged Suzanne & I – but perhaps her most straight-talking yet. It sees Calvi supplement her sound with moody 1980s bombast, and on the catwalk she ditches her guitar in order to do justice to the song’s vocal outro – a cacophony of orgasmic howls and Axl Rose-style yelping.
The times when Calvi indulges her rock star potential are mesmerising, but other moments are rather staid and trudging in comparison. Flanked by a drummer and a keyboardist on the main stage, her default mode is one of gothic majesty, yet she creates an atmosphere for plodding drums and windy vocals. This tedium is compounded by what feels like the world’s longest encore – not the best time for endless noodling and abstract atmospherics.
Thankfully, Calvi returns to high drama during her cover of Suicide’s Ghost Rider, curled up in a ball around her distortion-emitting guitar, then eventually slumping face-first on the runway, as if she’s sacrificed her life in the name of entertainment. It is a gratifying end to an evening that danced between wildly captivating and rather dull. Calvi clearly knows how to leave an audience spellbound. Now she needs to elevate the rest of her show to a mildly diverting middle ground.
