Tonight is somewhat of an unconventional offering from South London’s avant-pop outfit Insecure Men. To the surprise of the audience, bandleader Saul Adamczewski arrives alone on stage. Kitted in a canvas cargo jumpsuit, reflective sunglasses, and cap, he sits down with his plastic-strung guitar and takes a swig of Guinness. He has news to deliver, and after a short pause reveals that he is “about two songs away from losing [his] voice”. Either to try to warm up his vocal cords, or to avoid complete catastrophe later on, he brings all of the slower, acoustic numbers to the forefront of the set. Accordingly, the performance begins at half-speed, and is destined for an early end.
What follows is a curious but thoroughly entertaining split personality of a set. Opener ‘Tulse Hill Station’ sees Saul plucking gently at his guitar, as he sings about the end of a recent breakup. Struggling on the high notes in the chorus, he asks some of his band members to join him (“can I have some help on this bit”). It is not the start that anyone in the audience expected, but it is a genuinely moving song. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that, in the end, Saul’s hushed and fragile delivery contributed to its impact.
The following song, ‘Graveyard (Of Our Love)’ is equally intimate. Halfway through the song, Adamczewski stops to – rightfully, I might add – confront some chatty audiences members near the front. Clearly not impressed with them, or his voice, he asks them to “let me get back to my crap rendition of my own song”. The whole affair is unpolished but also refreshingly unpretentious. Saul comes across to the crowd as a genuine and un-self-serious character, determined to give the audience the best he has.
These early songs all gesture towards the new album, the reflective and rich A Man for All Seasons. The amorphous band was founded by Adamczewski, an ex-Fat White Family member, in 2015, but have only released two albums since. The themes of the new album are heavy, as Adamczewski confronts a period of psychosis and addiction he went through in 2024. In the candid words of his record label Fat Possum Records: “When you’ve lost your job as the tea boy for a Rastafarian meth dealer, where exactly is there left to go?”. After a period of recovery in 2025, the album is an honest and gentle reflection on his attempts to rebuild many of his relationships.
From here, the performance pivots. After concluding the acoustic half of the set with gorgeous and lush album-ender ‘Weak’, Adamczewski invites the rest of the band on stage. As the band get warmed up – drums are tested, guitars are thickened – Saul allows himself to loosen up, now partially relieved of carrying the room alone. Biggest hit ‘Cliff Has Left the Building’ marks the transition. The song epitomises the lounge-y and off-kilter pop of 2018’s self-titled record, and is very arguably the finest piece of music Insecure Men have ever produced. As the drums drunkenly stumble along with the bass, the vibraphones and saxophone hypnotise. Better described by Saul than I, it is “narcotic”. “Aquatic”, even.
Following this standout are two more tracks from the new album. There is the playful and bright ‘Krab’, even better live than on the album recording. The guitars, which are largely missing from the album’s mix, elevate the blues-y, singalong chorus. Then there is the gorgeous, lap-steel ornamented ‘Alien’. Here again Saul sings about the loss of a past romance (“Time keeps rolling on, and there was so much more that I meant to say”) his voice fighting through whatever affliction he has acquired over the past few days. Though the lyrics are painful and grieving, the music works against it. And indeed, that is partly the point. In the past, Adamczewski has spoken about music being an important form of escapism (though that might be too simple a word), particularly through the lowest times of his life: “When I play those songs, I leave my head. I guess that is all I’m ever really trying to do”.
Abruptly, Saul announces that the next song will have to be their last. Though he has tried his best to sing, this is only the start of Insecure Men’s tour, and he has to have something left for the other cities too. And so the band close with an ecstatic rendition of lead-single ‘Cleaning Bricks’, a muscular, four-on-the-floor pop tune that makes no apologies for its influences. As the song reaches its chaotic coda, Saul drops his guitar, makes some action man poses, and apologises for a final time to the crowd: “I’m sorry, this is the best we had”.
But, in my mind, no apology needs to be made. Against all the odds, Insecure Men produced a show tonight that was equal parts genuinely moving and consistently entertaining. As I leave the venue, and look at the time, I realise that it might be the shortest gig I’ve ever attended, coming in at a fleeting 43 minutes. But it’s just another reminder: quality over quantity.
Conor Lang
