Lucy Dacus @ Soup Kitchen, Manchester, 3 Nov

Restraint? What's that? There are times when nought but an all-action approach will do, and that's exactly what Wrexham's Baby Brave supply. There's no space for tasteful ambience, noise freakouts or brain-boggling displays of chops; every song is carefully sculpted from hooks and a fizzing energy which froths from the speakers and threatens to drench the room – witness the super-pop thrills of Rock Paper Scissors for proof of their straight-to-the-point brilliance. Ones to watch for sure.

By contrast, and returning to where we came in, Lucy Dacus' approach is much more subtle. You'd hesitate to label it 'restraint', mind; powerpop nuggets like I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore certainly aren't without their own surging charms, while there's demonstrable muscle in the likes of Troublemaker Doppelgänger.

Instead, there's a deftness that comes from her extraordinary voice, which hangs almost exclusively in lower pitches and gives the impression that something more muscular is constantly being held back. It captures the vulnerability at the heart of her wry wordsmithery ('Without you I am surely the last of my kind,' goes Dream State, heartbreakingly) but also points to bigger secrets within her music – ones that her excellent debut No Burden merely hints at.

"We've never been to Manchester before," laughs the softly-spoken Dacus towards the set's close. "Seems cool based on this one building we've been in." Tonight's disappointingly low attendance aside, this is surely the first trip of many – songwriters this good rarely stay buried for long, and frankly it sounds like this is merely the first, slight glimpse of what she's got to offer.