Bands don’t come much darker or much noisier than this sorrowful lot. But their bloody good…

Date: July 21, 2007

Venue: Rock City

The four dark figures which emerge in front of us this evening exude the darkness of a Tim Burton nightmare. Little more than shapes amongst a soupy fog, these four horseman of the rock apocalypse are hear to drag us away into the netherworld; a world where the Jesus and Mary Chain play their electrifying fuzzball clatter 24/7, and where BRMC are kings of the realm.

So incredibly loud, they thrash their instruments with tenebrous devilment, creating a storm of eardrum-destroying noise and distorted, buzzing guitars that sound like they’re drilling their way to the Earth’s core.

On opener, ‘Took Out A Loan’, be-hooded leader Robert Levon Been immerses himself in steaming bodies, threatening to spontaneously combust amongst the first row, frazzling the brains of everyone within a six foot radius, while ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ appears to be wired to the National Grid, causing a bone-shaking raw blues stomp. Even the relatively slow ‘666 Conducer’ veers into a quagmire of discordant guitars, typifying this maelstrom of squalling noise.

However, there is a respite to this breathless aural attack. As the band disperses for their pre-encore rituals, singing accomplice Peter Hayes plays a couple of solo songs from their bluesier album, Howl. Lit only by a solitary spotlight which gives him a crepuscular aura akin to Brandon Lee’s character in The Crow, he lulls us gently until the deafening belch of the encore pummels our solar plexus again. Shrouded in pitch black aloofness and louder than apocalyptic bombs, you join this club at your peril.