The Strange Death of Liberal England

Call me perverse, but I take a certain amount of pleasure from nights like tonight. Nights when the hyped-up, out-of-town touring band gets upstaged by the local support who, against the odds (e.g. little or no sound check, arriving at the venue straight from work) turn in a performance of real quality.

Not that you should ever expect anything less from Fury Of The Headteachers. In these parts, at least, they've established a reputation as a stellar live act, one whose frenzied double-vocal, twin-guitar assault can strip paint from a wall at 50 metres. The recording of debut album You Took A Scythe Home sounds consciously lo-fi but put them in a room like the smaller of The Leadmill's two and the result is an explosively noisy post-punk cocktail; like At The Drive-In trying and failing to play it straight or ¡Forward Russia! with everything double tracked.

From the ADD-afflicted guitars of 'Fables' to the angry rumble of 'Farewell Comrade', they score bonus points tonight for sounding merely a broken string or dropped mic away from nervous breakdown. "X is for execution" scream vocalist Chris Presland and keyboard player Warren Myles in unison on the latter track, and you'd be a fool to pick them up on the linguistic faux pas...

The Strange Death Of Liberal England, then, are up against it from the off. The crowd, diminished by about a third who were here only for the local acts, leave that ominous we're-not-too-fussed gap between public and performers - not that TSDOLE seem to care. Communicating only via cards bearing various slogans and lyrics from their songs, the demeanour is less frosty than detached; as though they're resigned to playing before crowds unfamiliar with their work and don't feel the need for verbal communication. Either that or they're trying to make some kind of ridiculous grand statement, in which case I'd urge them to remove head from backside. But that's by-the-by...

Perhaps inevitably, some of the intricacy of impressive mini-album Forward March (released today, fact fans) is lost in a live setting, and it's the post-rock elements of their sound that are accentuated tonight. 'Modern Folk Song' and 'A Day Another Day' both feature noisy breakdowns that the band revel in recreating, not least manic-looking singer/guitarist Adam Woolway. It's whether you find Woolway's idiosyncratic vocal delivery (think British Sea Power's Yan crossed with a bit of Frank Black) palatable or not that dictates your ability to enjoy TSDOLE live - on record, it's less overbearing but, tonight, could do with some reining in.

It's not that this is a bad performance, far from it, but after being pleasantly surprised by Forward March I was hoping to be bowled over by the live show a la My Latest Novel (a band TSDOLE aren't dissimilar to - see 'Old Fashioned War') in the same venue last year. That doesn't happen: even though their fuzzed-up, punch-drunk renditions of the record hit all the right notes, they fail to stir my soul. And that, folks, is why all the Arcade Fire comparisons thrown at this band just don't stick. Yet.