Hear the band name The Sleeping Souls and you will probably think of Frank Turner, given they have been performing together for over 10-years. However, the band have been busy recording a debut album in their own right. That's not to say that Frank wasn't there in spirit, well in the high spirts of the acts being a butt of a number of jokes. Having worked together for such a long time a little bit of banter was inevitable. While they have plans to work together again, this night was about the Sleeping Souls.

Marking their inaugural album's release, The Sleeping Souls headed out on their first UK headline tour in January, accompanied by co-headliner Sean McGowan, with whom they have also collabortaed before. We caught them in Bristol at their fourth ever gig, performed on the unusual floating venue that is The Thekla, a former cargo ship. On a permanent mooring near the centre of the city famed for it's nautical past.

Deep within the hold of the ship in the dimly lit setting, band members Tarrant Anderson (bass), Matt Nasir (piano), Callum Green (drums), Ben Lloyd (guitar) took the stage. They were joined by fellow road warrior Cahir O’Doherty (Fighting With Wire, Jetplane Landing and currently New Pagans) who has filled in previously for Frank on guitar, as well as Tarrant and Ben at different times.

The set opened with the explosively antagonistic 'Rivals, before moving onto their second track of the night 'Scared Of Living', a song about the Orwellian, screen-dominated world we find ourselves living in. They closed on the highly charged polito-punk follow-up 'Caught Up In The Scrape'. The tracks take their cues from a wild array of influences, from the explorative post/rock sounds to the tempestuous punk through to the introspective alt/folk. Not there has ever been doubt about in our mind about this, but tonight showed they are way more than just Frank's backing band.