Envy

It's like sonic carnage tonight. Even though I'm wearing fuck-off earplugs the racket is, quite literally, deafening. There is a fizzing hiss that probably represents several high-end frequencies disappearing for good. A crashing kaboom gets closer and closer and closer, keeping the 125-bpm tempo but increasing in intensity and volume. A cathartic whip-like crack kicks in, making me blink with each blast. Then a screech pans from deep left all the way to far right and is terminated by an amplified clang that sounds like a jet engine hitting paving slabs at 800-miles per hour. My teeth are juddering in my skull and I feel cleansed, like I've been in some kind of sonic shower.

Then I get to The Underworld and run inside away from the fucking fireworks and take my earplugs out just in time to catch a band coming on stage. Unfortunately (in some ways) the band aren't Beestung Lips.

Due to some kind of running order fuck up I've missed Birmingham's finest export in many moons, which is piss poor news as they're astounding. They rose from the ashes of tragicomic pop rock terror unit Noise Noise Allore and have returned as punk evangelists. All drooling, leering, black-eyed, gin preachers singing outside your window at 3am. Trying to win you over with a semi-on and a head full of hatred. If you LOVE punk properly and you LOVE bands like The Jesus Lizard and Future of the Left then go and buy their EP 'Songs To And From An Iron Gut' on Capsule because you'll, y'know, LOVE it. Punchdrunk riffs and lovers' tiffs.

Not unfortunately, however, I get to see Bossk for the first time, who are an epic Panopticon-era ISIS and Neurosis-informed post post post rock outfit. Their attention to the minutest detail is what marks them out from an already over-crowded pack. Their shimmer is more shiny, their grit is more gritty and their rock has more cock out. If you've ever greeted the dawn rising over the ocean with a belly full of red wine and a head full of madness as naked as the day you were born - but a lot more hairy - roaring swearwords at the seagulls, then you will love this band. What often lets these groups down is a singer who just can't quite cut the mustard, and that's understandable: you can buy pedals to make your guitar sound like the world's ending but you're a bit more exposed if you're a vocalist. However this chap roars in a manner that could burst your pancreas. Fucking mint.

Envy have a hard job in following that. And to be honest they don't: the crowd don't seem in any way shape or form bothered. There is a partisan following here who have obviously invested a great deal of time and emotion in this band and there are some very visible acts of worship going on down the front. Anyone else, though, could wonder quite what the fervour was about. Their riffs are too simplistic, the vocals lacking in both verve and conviction, the ebb and flow of the music too clearly signposted. They are in no way bad, but sound almost exactly like Rock Action bosses Mogwai on a day when they can't be arsed. (Which, let's have it straight, seems to be about 50 percent of the time.) Their drummer is obviously a superb jazz talent but lost underneath a wall of treacly sludge. This said, even he resorts to a military tattoo, which has almost become the default setting of post rock bands because, y'know, it suggests war and important stuff.

To be fair, when Envy get it right, it's truly beautiful coming into sharp, painful clarity but melting away again into heavy noodle soup frustratingly quickly. So sometimes what should sound like a celestial encounter just sounds like recent Sigur Rós efforts with more distortion and sometimes it's reassuringly beautiful, like a small scar on a lover's face or a scene from a film you've watched 30 or more times.

But Bossk aside, it's back outside into a freezing cold Camden night for some real fireworks.

Photo: Yoshiharu Ota