The wood-panelled walls of the retro-futurist New Century Hall in Manchester might have been too thin, but the sound tonight was just veracious, as the ever-so-talented singer/songwriter Holly Humberstone cast a binding spell on all its inhabitants.

Since winning the BRITs Rising Star back in the depths of ‘22, the Grantham-born artist has been perfecting a very specific alchemy of the highest order: turning that claustrophobic rush of early-twenties anxiety into anthems that were made to reverberate off fragile student dorm walls or cavernous venues like this one.

Before our rooms could be painted gothic black to the tune of Holly and her band, the startling Geordie support, Heidi Curtis.

Armed with a voice that carries the strength of an entire choir, Curtis delivered a brutal set of Northern grit that silenced the room to its core.

Gothic pop starlet Holly Humberstone delivered a spell-binding set. (Photo: Luc Burke-Lejeune).

placeholder image — Gothic pop starlet Holly Humberstone delivered a spell-binding set. (Photo: Luc Burke-Lejeune).

If these varnished walls were painted a deep shade of ebony, Curtis could certainly peel off that darkly dried ink with her demanding vocals, as the Northern mystic delivered a set of stark, Tyneside rock that felt both timeless and urgently fresh.

Curtis has really got that "next big thing" energy that suggests she won’t be the opening act for much longer.

Now London might be lonely, but tonight in the heart of Manchester it definitely wasn’t, as at a few minutes past nine, Holly’s witchy act commenced, with the dazzling lights above the antiquated fans dimming into darkness, a pulsating grip of glitched audio and visuals jesting out to the backdrop of Humberstone’s medieval wonderland.

Smothered by the covering fog of smoke machines, by the time Humberstone and her band made their way to the raised stage, the gothic backdrop of turrets and dead trees had warped their branches around the enlightened souls and invited them into a world of pure-pop intimacy, with the heavily stylised glitching effects reaching boiling point, figures of shadows cast across the stage to initialise tonight’s ceremony with Make It All Better.

Wounding the audience with not just her cynically sincere lyrics but a heavy-fronted setlist of her very best, which saw the live performances of two new and one familiar: To Love Somebody, The Walls Are Way Too Thin, and Cruel World.

Sandwiching a setlist staple between two freshly released singles only amplified the volume of the youthful crowd reciting each lyric back to the smiling twenty-six-year-old.

The mid-set run was particularly devastating, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Kissing in Swimming Pools remains a gut-punch of a ballad, sounding cavernous in the hall's pristine acoustics, while Deep End served as a poignant reminder of why she became the voice of a generation of overthinkers, truly diving into the deep end of the pools of our minds and saying the things we’re too scared to say out loud.

Falling Asleep At The Wheel, was one of the latter tracks in her vocally striking performance, and while the track name may contain “asleep” in the title, the Manchester venue was far from hitting the hay, as the hypnotic riffs that run throughout the track create this effervescent life that hits sweetly on pricked ears.

Collapsing her show into a brief moment of darkness with the fan favourite Scarlett, Humberstone returned to the stage to perform a pair of perfect set closers; first in line was Lucy, another unreleased anthem from Cruel World, and it is probably the perfect embodiment of the album title as the gothic songstress delved into the creation process and declared how it was made for her friend feeling lost in the world, which is certainly a feeling shared by all and hit home like a classic with the Manchester audience.

As the bruised, distortion-heavy climax of Dive saw out her frivolous finale, her wonderful showcase of old and freshly new bleeds out into the damp Manchester night; the sheer scale of Humberstone’s evolution is like a blow to the head, dangerously damaging and effortlessly life-changing.

Three albums deep, she has entirely shed the skin of the fragile bedroom-pop prodigy, emerging instead as an alternative to the plasticity of pop queens today, as Humberstone hasn't lost a single ounce of her lacerating intimacy.

Manchester, a city that knows a thing or two about musical reinvention, just bore witness to something truly special. Holly Humberstone burrowed a nest in its heavy, beating heart, proving once and for all that her reign as the UK's ultimate indie-pop anti-hero is absolutely untouchable.