King Eider @ The Leith Volcano, Edinburgh, 17 Aug

Hidden safely away from the mobbed Old Town and more typical Festival venues is the reclaimed, dilapidated former St James Church near The Shore, where King Eider are playing tonight. It’s an awesome and almost imposing setting, but the group demonstrate confidence and self-assuredness, filling the vast space with their music from the start.

The gig really takes off as the band begin Fire, a single from 2015 EP The Beast With Two Backs. King Eider are hard to pin down genre-wise: folk, blues, pop and a host of other labels all spring to mind immediately. The violin, guitars, keys, drums and vocals bounce off each other, competing and showing off in turn, before merging harmoniously.

Tonight the group's lead singer and guitarist Reuben Zopa-Tighe switches between his acoustic and electric guitar regularly. In fact, the multi-instrumental ability of King Eider's members is astounding. Perhaps most beautiful are the vocal harmonies and powerful moments of a cappella which compliment the louder, guitar and percussion climaxes of many of the songs tonight.

Songwriting is another aspect of this gig which is due praise. As we reach the middle of the performance, the group leaves Zopa-Tighe alone on stage to perform Glue, a simple, stripped-back and moving song played on just an acoustic guitar. Lyrics, melody and the passion in the performance are impeccable.

The show is unfortunately riddled with small sound issues, from quiet mics at the start to a faulty lead and feedback. This is a shame, but it’s a tricky venue acoustically and the makeshift nature of the evening only encourages the crowd’s adoration and support, as King Eider use their natural charm and likeability to overcome these technical issues. The encore and final song of the evening is their highly popular single Whisky which gets everyone dancing and finishes the show with a bang.

This is a highly-talented group of musicians who are creating unusual and intriguing music, who filled a derelict old church with melody, personality and bags of energy.