“Hello darkness my old friend, it’s time to jerk those tears again”.  With a sly quote from Simon and Garfunkel, a bit of self-parody, and some not-inconsiderable internal restructuring (“efficiencies”, euphemistically), Tindersticks are back.  I think I must have seen their last show in their old formation (which at the time looked like it may have been their last ever), when they performed Tindersticks’ Second at the Barbican as part of the Don’t Look Back season, and now their first as a three-piece - albeit one heavily augmented by strings and brass and so on.  Once again they were performing an album in its entirety, in order.

Tonight it was their return-to-form new album The Hungry Saw which was getting its debut airing.  The changes in personnel seemed to lift a weight from the shoulders of the ever-dapper Stuart Staples, with a smile playing on his lips as the strings swelled during the first highlight, the lush soul of “Yesterday Tomorrows”.  After the perky instrumental interlude “The Organist Entertains”, and just when I was beginning to worry it wouldn’t happen, there was a welcome mid-set selection of songs from their previous life.  These included the dusky, husky “Dying Slowly”, the cover of Odyssey’s “If You’re Looking For A Way Out”, still full of ache, and the duet-that-is-now-sadly-not-a-duet “Travelling Light”.  

The second half of the set wrapped up the new album, including that knowing title track, “Boobar”’s call and response and the magnificently brooding “All The Love”.  They returned to encore with – what else – “My Sister”, and as we looked out the window at the little twinkly stars and huge tiger-striped fishes it was as if all the upheaval of the last few years hadn’t happened.  Tindersticks are very much back, and back at their tear-jerking heart-sawing best. This is not the end, by a long stretch.