Once upon a time, a gang of frantic post-hardcore misfits from Milwaukee with trouble on their minds and fever in their eyes formed a band, released a stunning debut record, quit their jobs and prepared to bring their joyride rock and roll to European climes. Just as it was all going to plan, their bass player jumped ship, and Since By Man hit the pause button.

Two years on, they've finally made it over here. Given the fervour and dynamism of both their debut and their recent EP, London's Archway Tavern should be rammed front-to-back with fervent devotees. This is a band that should be playing to large audiences. Not cavernous venues necessarily, but hot, sweaty rooms crammed with breathless faces and roars of approval. Alas, tonight it's not to be. A small but expectant circle watches as Since By Man's cataclysmic guitars spiral into self-destruction, and singer Sam Macon scrapes himself off the floor, only to dive towards it again.

Cut to the dark, sticky-floored bar of Brighton's Freebutt, 24 hours later. It's hot in here, the kind of heat that sticks to your face and cramps your lungs, and the place is heaving. Macon fills the floorspace, crashing back and forth between the dense crowd and a confined stage flooded with red light. "We could be the last band you ever see!", he muses between songs, before colliding again with the wall of bodies.

If so, what a way to go. If Since By Man had made it over here two years ago, would they have sounded like this? All these danceable, smashitup guitars, mashed face-first into schitzoid rhythms - would it have been this frenzied, this tight? Since By Man play everything killer hard, heavy as hell and louder than apocalypse, but the undercurrent of rhythm supersedes it all; your first and last impulse is to dance like no-one's watching.

'Push The Panic' takes the Refused blueprint of layering spattered beats under vocals loaded with self-belief and melodies simultaneously exploding in four different directions, and 'Goddamnit Baby This Is Soul', a cut from their recent EP, opens with a futuristic flicker of samples before spazzing into a violent freakout of technoid guitars. Stand back and watch the sparks fly, or throw yourself into the middle of it. Either way, see them while you have the chance - Since By Man are not to be missed. They play Swindon tonight. Roadtrip, anyone?