Matt Corby had the kind of false start that can sink a career before it has even begun. In 2007, as a callow 16-year-old, he was a series runner-up in the Australian Idol TV talent show, earnestly warbling overwrought covers of the Verve and Coldplay.
Close on a decade, a relocation to London and an impressive debut album, Telluric, later, Corby has reinvented himself as a purveyor of immaculate, mildly jazzy neo-soul. His aching songs imply volcanic, oceanic feeling, yet are so meticulously buffed that you can see your face in them.
When they work, they are tremendous. Tonight’s opening track, Belly Side Up, is all murmurs and implications, as if Corby has been inspired by James Blake’s mission to voice the inarticulate speech of the heart. Similarly powerful is Monday, where his band exits, leaving him layering and looping his plaintive croon like a digital-age Jeff Buckley.
Yet the bearded Corby is so laid-back that he’s positively beatific and his lustrous laments are so remote that they could be unfolding behind glass. Contrary to its title, Knife Edge is yet one more sumptuous electro-swoon. Pretty much everything he plays is yet one more sumptuous electro-swoon.
It’s sporadically compelling but can be so carefully tasteful that it lacks any true flavour. In TV talent-show parlance, Matt Corby has already been on an amazing musical journey: now he needs to take it a crucial stage further and connect.
• At Limelight, Belfast, 2 April. Box office: 028-9032 7007. Then touring.
