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# Review: The Blackheart Orchestra at The Hub at St Mary’s
- URL: https://lichfieldlive.co.uk/review-the-blackheart-orchestra-at-the-hub-at-st-marys/
- Published: 2023-04-24T05:37:57.000Z
- Updated: 2023-04-24T05:40:10.000Z
- Description: The Blackheart Orchestra played a set of music that blended gothic storytelling with pop music, elements of prog rock and lessons in building texture when they appeared at The Hub at St Mary’s.
- Author: Ben Macnair
- Tags: Reviews, What's On, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-22 19:01

The Blackheart Orchestra played a set of music that blended gothic storytelling with pop music, elements of prog rock and lessons in building texture when they appeared at The Hub at St Mary’s.

Support for the evening was provided by the talented pianist and singer-songwriter Jenny Bray. Her four-song set featured elements of strong songcraft, as well as echoes of blues, ambient chamber music and pop in the keyboard playing.

Songs such as Seems Like a New Day, and Angels on the Shelf were story pieces. Set closer Everything is Me was deeply auto-biographical.

The Blackheart Orchestra – singer and multi-instrumentalists Chrissy Mostyn and Rick Pilkington – plough their own sonic furrow. With elements of dance music, progressive rock, folk and other found sounds, they have their own identity, while also showing elements of other artists.

With something of Kate Bush and Tori Amos in the vocals, the high pitch and placing of the bass showing the influence of both Peter Hook and Tina Weymouth, and the sonic structures with digital drums, they also had something of The Blue Nile to their sound.

The stage was full of electric, bass and acoustic guitars, as well as a number of vintage synthesisers. Both musicians often played more than one instrument at a time, while also singing complicated harmony and lead vocals.

Much of the music came from their album Hotel Utopia, with The Tide and Under The High Lights showing the duo’s creativity at their finest.

Their live looping of vocals and multiple guitar, drum machine and bass parts were also closely organised, with the technical aspects of the music’s presentation not getting in the way of the flow of the music or of their performances.

The trance sounds of Drowning Out, Astronaut and The Times were all very well received, but it was Sebastian, one of their older songs that got the loudest reception from the attentive audience.