Com Favo is a strange creature: an album that has taken an astonishing five years to complete but clocks in at barely half-an-hour is either the sign of a part-time band or the result of some serious writer’s block, but it transpires that The James Orr Complex is a one-man band, with the odd guest adding percussion.

Twelve tracks of a Martin D15 acoustic guitar (relax, I’m not that clever, the cover explains all) and vocals is almost defiantly against the prevailing winds. Com Favo starts with folky guitar finger-picking and a mellow voice asking to join an “Angry Mob”. While people cite Mogwai, Arab Strap and Shellac, the James Orr Complex’s obvious antecedents are Nick Drake (there are distinct vocal similarities, and the jazz-tinged playing confirms it), John Martyn’s atypical jazz-flute album The Tumbler, Bert Jansch and the jazz-folk stylings of Robin Dransfield.

Christopher Mack’s only slight amendment to the formula is to add a Latin American tinge to his flights of fancy. That isn’t as unlikely - or as intrusive - as you might think: Brazilian percussion and the rabeca (a sort-of wooden bass viola/flute sound) flutter around the central core of the bright guitar noise. The James Orr Complex, it should be explained, have relocated to Sao Paulo, Brazil and recorded with local musicians before sending the tapes back to Mack’s native Glasgow for finishing touches.

Perhaps trying for the austere majesty of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Com Favo is always going to pale by comparison. The long, lingering stretches of pure guitar are undoubtedly beautifully played but, unlike his obvious heroes, Christopher Mack doesn’t have their song writing abilities. If you put Pink Moon on at a dinner party sooner or later the room will hush and all the attention will drift to the poignant music and aching heart of the songs.

However, if you put The James Orr Complex on at the same party you’re likely to go into a coma or just forget that there’s music on at all. Although I’ve played Com Favo several times and listened to it for a week there’s not one song that stands out from the others. It is as if the record is one single song just divided into twelve movements.

I approve of anyone who strives for a second chance at perfection, and the loose addition of Latin instruments is a masterstroke of ingenuity, but in order to achieve perfection the James Orr Complex need better songs, a clearer sense of their (his?) own individuality and either passion or resignation as a defining vocal factor. Played with precision, what Com Favo really lacks is a soul… and some more advanced lyrics.

This is still a commendable attempt, but why do people insist on trying to remake work that is already a masterpiece? It’s like trying to repaint the Sistine Chapel with airbrushes and Photoshop.

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You Can’t Hide From The Computers is seven blistering punk songs in eighteen minutes that recall how the early days of Motorhead might have sounded, had Lemmy had been sacked from The Stooges or The Monks rather than Hawkwind: scorchingly fast rock’n'roll married to treble-heavy eighties punk and hardcore. “Love The Music, Hate The Kids” blasts out with seizure-like precision and “Must Try Harder” shreds through vocals and drums as if they were bought in a pound shop.

“S.O.S.” slows everything down with a Lard-esque repeating chorus of ’save our souls’ and an oozing thud as if the CD player is gradually winding down. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of producing a wind-up CD player? The results could be hilarious.

“Please Drink Responsibly” combines slow and the fast elements with impressive results, but it’s the rampaging Dead Kennedys / fifties rock’n'roll-lite of “Hell Yeah” that captures The Computers‘ raging essence. Battered drums, pumping, stumbling bass, serrated guitars and a throat-shredding screech will see them go far, especially as they have a Hives / White Stripes visual sense that sees them permanently in uniform.

If The Computers could just find some choruses and forget the stoner rock plod of “City Ghosts” (and its too-close-to-”S.O.S.”-to-be-healthy chorus) their individual take on the genre could take them all over the world.

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What I’ve decided to do here is divide A Love Extreme into CD1 and CD2, but it’s important that what I say about one CD can be applied quite merrily to the other one, just not as much, except for the bits where it’s applies exactly as much. Clear now?

No. Well, welcome to A Love Extreme: an album that appears to be the sole work of one Benji Hughes, a man who needs more money to realise his dream (yet whom, it transpires, is actually aided by Keefus Ciancia (look him up) on a number of tracks). It’s a work that appears to have been released unfinished, a work that includes songs that don’t have an ending and a few that appear to be lacking a beginning… yet it’s a work that is accessible, pleasing and totally pop.

A Love Extreme is over-long, it’s under-produced, the songs could all sound better given more time/money/a band, and some of it is simply dreadful. Can you have my copy? No chance; I bloody love it.

So, what does it sound like? Oh dear. Umm, CD1 is the album Jim Noir would make, perhaps lyrically aided by White Town and entirely produced on a single, cheap computer in Balham, but sung by Beck doing his Lenny Kravitz impression. Oh, and with a bit of Super Furry Animals-referencing space rock thrown in. It’s ramshackle, occasionally funny but also occasionally terrible (see the above SFA-a-like songs and the execrable “Tight Tee Shirt”), but Benji Hughes‘ voice is an absolute charm and the tunes that work will stay with you for days (“Why Do These Parties Always End The Same Way” is a highlight of CD1). Even the wee short bits don’t appear to be there for effect alone (unlike, say, the stupid, aren’t-we-clever bursts that peppered the otherwise excellent début by The Brakes).

Much like the first half of A Love Extreme, CD2 hasn’t the time or inclination for gaps between songs, or intros, or endings; the songs tool along merrily, then whoosh - you’re listening to the next one, and it’s not due to a concept, unless it’s a wry comment on modern life’s similarity to mass ADHD. The songs are, ahem, songier on CD2 though, more fully formed, but no less pokey in production. Benji Hughes comes over precisely like Julian Casablancas fronting The Flaming Lips while throwing together ideas, songs and sketches to send to a potential producer to give a vague idea of what the nascent new album will feature.

In fact, the whole of A Love Extreme can be described in these terms. Almost every song could be taken, played by a band/orchestra/choir of Baptist Hell’s Angels in flowing robes and turned into The Greatest Song of the Century So Far ^TM. The fact they haven’t been is either the result of poverty, stupidity or a kind of genius I can never hope to understand. “Love on a Budget” brings to mind Flight of the Conchords at their best, but they write funny songs; Benji Hughes writes fantastic songs that are sometimes pretty funny.

I wish I could be more specific about the album, the songs, the sound… but if I highlight any single thing it would be at the detriment of a thousand equally important elements. Just buy it, why don’t you? If you like Sufjan Stevens but want something a little less expansive, or something like Ben Folds without having to wipe the smugness off the surface of the CD; if you often find yourself listening to music by yourself: Benji Hughes is for you.

Who knew he was white though? Lordy…

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Blimey, “Devour” is big. It’s big and loud. It’s big, loud and completely American. I mean, it’s so big, loud, American, testosteroned, blandly alternative, amusingly earnest and self-confident it would be perfect for, say, American Wrestling; impressively butch yet simple enough for some kind of computerised sport sim, perhaps.

Yeah, obviously I’m cheating here: “Devour” is already penned in for use by Madden 09, it’s the third(!) of Shinedown’s songs to be used as the soundtrack to grown men in leotards pretending to fight each other and ESPN (damn the man, kids!) are using it for their baseball coverage (no, me neither; maybe for the bits when the fat umpire shouts at the fat manager) and it’s exactly how you’d expect a song used as such to sound. Power riffs! Chugging bits! Running along a corridor bridges! Ordered riot!

Soundgarden used to use a similar guitar sound to Shinedown, but they cunningly welded it to interesting, original songs, the cheating twisters. “Devour” is boring. It’s for those clean metal guys that look in the mirror and see a maverick, an outlaw, and then tuck their pony-tail under their collar before popping down the polling station to vote Tory.

Tidy-bearded metal: gives me the willies.

Of course, “Devour” might just be the most calculated song off a stormer of an album - after all, it is undoubtably a fucking big bugger and, like all the best singles, it’s in and out faster than John Holmes on a come-down - but I rather doubt it: they did write “Save Me” after all.

And - and! - I’ll tell you what bothers me most: I have a terrible feeling my eldest sister would really rather quite like Shinedown, and she’s exactly the kind of ex-punk now middle-class headmistress I fear the most, who, after a bottle of rosé and a night in, still thinks she knows… despite actually preferring Heart FM when alone in the car.

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“Sure - what’s the name?”

“Paul Raven.”

“Oh yeah, there you go - plus one.”

“Sweet. Cheers.”

Tonight, readers, I’m undercover, unconvincingly playing the role of your host. He’s stuck in Pompey, ill, and I’m here to bear the torch for online music journalism. It also helps that Fucked Up are a band I’ve got a lot of time for.

With me is my friend Sam, wearing the moniker Plus One. She’d not heard Fucked Up until an hour before the gig, but this is a good chance to continue my efforts to turn all of my friends onto punk and hardcore. The stakes are high, and we prove our commitment by showing up too late to see the first support, London’s Betty & the Werewolves. By the sounds of what’s on MySpace, they play cute, toe-tapping and poppy indie rock.

Fortunately we’re just in time for the next band: main support is provided by London’s Let’s Wrestle, who offer up consistently entertaining indie power-pop tunes, equal parts light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. Their stage banter is flippant and blasé, perhaps to hide the fact that they’re not entirely sure how they’ll go down in front of a room of Fucked Up fans.

The answer is ‘well enough’: sure, people aren’t dancing, and more than one pair of arms is crossed, but the jokes get laughs and the tunes get cheers and applause, and what more can you hope for? Besides, this is Brighton. Dancing doesn’t happen in Brighton. Go figure: it’s just a local phenomenon. Let’s Wrestle win scene points for the first-ever (apparently) live play of “Our Drummer is a Punk” and for finishing their final song, the shout-along theme tune “Let’s Wrestle”, by shifting into an aggressive, pulsing Fucked Up riff that’s straight from 2006’s Hidden World.

And there’s plenty more from Hidden World tonight - whilst material from The Chemistry of Modern Life isn’t lacking from tonight’s set, Fucked Up seem leery of relying too heavily on just recent material. At one point vocalist Pink Eyes flings a question to the crowd - “what do you guys wanna hear? “Crusades” or “Police”?” - as though they’re not quite sure what people are here to, well, hear.

Sadly my cry of “play both” goes unheeded and we’re treated to the incendiary “Crusades” (complete with a pile-on of sweaty men, hilariously hemmed between the Freebutt’s intrusive central pillar and the foot of the stage). Not that “Crusades” is a bad tune, but when you’re given the choice between an almost seven-minute epic and a two and a half minute slice of thrashy hardcore, playing both doesn’t seem too unreasonable.

It’s a night of contrasts in a lot of ways. To some it might seem odd for a Canadian hardcore punk band like Fucked Up to take a London power-pop band on tour with them, but they’ve had plenty more unusual collaborators and clearly the band don’t give a fuck about what people might expect in terms of stage-mates. Then there’s how damn friendly the band are, cracking jokes, telling stories, chatting with the audience. It’s a far cry from the confrontational attitude that you’d be forgiven for expecting at a Fucked Up gig.

None of this is ultimately relevant. The Freebutt has once again played host to a great band and a roomful of fans; I’m not the only one singing along with the choruses. And Sam’s slow indoctrination to the ways of punk rock and hardcore continues; she likes what she’s seen, and will be borrowing a few Fucked Up records from me. Good times for fans old and new - roll on the rest of the tour.

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So, what of the rockumentary? If there’s one thing that ‘reality television’ has taught us (or those of us with an IQ bigger than our shoe size, at least) it’s that the screen might not lie, but it manipulates the truth with a dexterity that puts government statisticians to shame. As a result, we expect ‘reality’ footage to be over-the-top, in-your-face, larger-than-life… we expect to see people portrayed as massive amplifications of their foibles, and not much else. Think back to the Pantera backstage videos of old… surely the equivalent from a battle metal band is going to be an orgy of drunken mania and carnage that makes Odin’s banquet table look like a Women’s Institute picnic?

It would appear not. Quite the opposite, in fact; Turisas come across as some of the nicest, most amiable and unpretentious metalheads you could ever hope to meet. A Finnish Summer portrays them rolling around their home country playing a selection of festival dates, culminating in their own home town, and is intercut with brief snippets of interviews about the band’s past as well as members of the band talking about (and demonstrating) Finnish culture, traditions and history. As such, the apogee of Turisas‘ debauchery and rock’n'roll behaviour is staying up all night at Midsummer, having nailed raw fish to planks of wood (seriously), flailed themselves with tree branches while enjoying a sauna and taken a swim in an idyllic but remarkably chilly-looking lake. Not that they don’t go to excessive extremes occasionally, mind you - they did use a whole kilo of real butter for basting the fish!

Of course, this reality could be just as carefully managed as its opposite; perhaps Turisas actually subsist on a diet of mead, blood and rapine when the cameras are turned off. But on the evidence of A Finnish Summer, you’d have little to worry about when taking them home to your parents’ place… your mum would probably even forgive them the mess they make of the sink when they put on their stage make-up. But there’s the point, I guess; Turisas don’t take themselves at all seriously off-stage, but on-stage it’s high theatre all the way.

I’ll be frank and say I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to buy a Turisas album, but on the basis of the concert footage on A Finnish Summer I’d make a point of catching their set at a festival if I got the chance - because it’s that sense of theatre that made metal such a cultural success story in the first place, and when it’s done right you can’t help but be reminded of that fact. It’s like an equation that doesn’t add up on paper: grown adults dressed in leather and furs and coated with fake blood performing strident yet melodic heavy metal epics about Norse mythology and folklore doesn’t sound like that much fun at first, but I found myself wearing a shit-eating grin right the way through the footage. It helps that Turisas themselves are plainly having just as much fun as the neck-flailing audiences of Finnish metallers; it also helps that - incongruously enough - the line-up includes one gentleman Viking playing the violin and a lady Viking playing an accordion.

If it is at all possible for anyone to have watched the documentary and concert footage on A Finnish Summer and still think Turisas aren’t having the best sort of laugh - the sort that isn’t at anyone’s expense, essentially - then the addition of the promotional video for their rousing and ridiculous cover of Boney-M’s “Ra Ra Rasputin” is your only hope. If that doesn’t work, then the fault is entirely with the cynical viewer and not the band themselves, and you may as well dispatch them to their bedrooms where they can flagellate themselves with the Deicide back-catalogue. While refreshingly honest, the documentary’s lack of crazy high-jinks means it will probably only be of real interest to die-hard Turisas fans and enthusiasts of Finnish culture. However, wherever metalheads with a sense of humour might gather in the presence of alcohol and comfortable seating, the concert footage alone should provide a good eighty minutes of horn-raising entertainment.

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Tortuga play doom metal, you see. And not the currently trendy hard rock stuff either; Kings of Albany is scrapingly heavy, mixed for brutality over melody and powered by surprisingly progressive percussion - there’s a definite chunk of post-hardcore in their heritage, too. The guitars chug and grind away at downtuned riffs, and Gareth Evans shrieks and wails like some extra from a Polanski battlefield scene. What the cover does for your eyes, the music does for your ears in a million shades of graphite.

Bright-pink happy, Tortuga are not. But then you knew that already, didn’t you, having checked the tracklisting and found titles like “The Lachrymose”, “Bury Me In You (Fatal)” and “Hell’s Red Roads”, placing Kings of Albany quite safely in the traditionally bleak and morbid territories of doom metal and the more nihilistic end of UK hardcore. Songs about meeting girls at the rock show are not on the agenda.

The hardcore brutalist aesthetic is somewhat ameliorated, though. Tortuga show an almost progressive approach, and not just at the level of individual songs. “Somethingness” is a dark eulogy that gives way to the bare-knuckle bludgeon, twisted guitars and howling choruses of “The Laudanum Boys Club”, which in turn ends in a film sample (for which I can’t find a credit) before returning full-circle to the funereal dirge of “Nothingness”.

But if you thought Kings of Albany was going to lull you into sleep (or, more likely, some sort of coma or anaphylactic shock) they pick things up again with the frantic intro of “Winter’s Widow”. The whole album shifts paces and textures carefully, never once leaving you stuck in a traffic jam of seven similar songs, and even managing to surprise with the maudlin piano ballad of “Something Blue”. And being an In At The Deep End release, it’s cheap as chips, and you know the bulk of the dosh will actually go to the band themselves. Result.

Of course, the caveat there is that, while Kings of Albany may be affordable, well-constructed and deceptively intelligent, it’s not the sort of thing that anyone other than a devoted fan of ludicrously heavy and miserable music would be likely to find themselves enjoying. Tortuga make no concessions to fashion or listenability; for them, it’s all about exorcising their existential malaise, pouring it out into a relentless torrent of muddy psychological run-off. It’s not pretty, and you’ll end up filthy, but there’s an impressive natural power waiting for those brave enough to step close. Just be careful the undertow doesn’t drown you.

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Well, the extremely cynical might say “not a Wednesday”, as midweek shows are not renowned for their great turnout. But even so there’s a fairly respectable crowd crammed into the side of the dreadfully-named Fat Fox pub on Albert Road this evening, who have already been treated to a set from the James Cleaver Quartet by the time I arrive. I just about have time to grab a beer before Munroe Effect take to the tiny stage to do their thing.

The most immediate shock of the evening is how good the sound is - hiring a decent soundman really does make a difference, as the light and shade of Munroe Effect’s high-precision progressive post-hardcore really leaps out at you. The heavy bits are loud, but the tone is full and powerful rather than abrasive, and the calmer bits are bright and clear, full of sparkling chiming tones and devoid of squalling feedback. You can actually hear what’s happening, in other words, which means the Fat Fox ranks above another local venue with over ten times its capacity, for this evening at least.

You need that clarity to be able to fully appreciate Munroe Effect’s work, because it’s very much based in shifts and changes. Their songs tend to mutate, developing organically from their starting point to conclusions that are as surprising as they are logical. I tend to avoid comparisons as much as possible, but sometimes there’s no better way to describe a band, so: to make a Munroe Effect song, take your average eight-minute Oceansize epic, and place carefully in a well-oiled vice; now carefully and steadily apply pressure from either end while compressing the sides to avoid messy spillage, and continue until the eight minutes has shrunk to no more than four. All those dynamics - those landscapes, journeys and narratives - are crunched down into swift sharp bursts of loud-quiet-loud that hide moody pop hooks in their hearts. It’s over sooner than you expect, and far sooner than you want.

Next up are Blakfish, who look like a mismatched batch of college kids who’ve climbed on stage merely to see how long they can stay before being kicked off, but once they start playing everything becomes very very serious. Or rather it becomes simultaneously serious and even more ridiculous… from a technical point of view, Blakfish’s music is incredibly intricate and progressive (as well as loud and super-fast), and they all play with an astonishing degree of skill, but they’re also having a lot of surreal fun at the same time.

Point in case: topical political commentary. Blakfish’s opening song contains the refrain “McCain is Obama and Obama is McCain“; I don’t know whether this is an old song, something fairly new or a spontaneous rewording of something in between. I also have no idea what they mean by it… or whether, indeed, they mean anything by it at all. The almost autistic hyperfocus of their manic mathematical spazzcore contrasts with the sarcastic Da-Da mania of the lyrics, and the only certainty would appear to be their disapproval of mundane conformity: “if I had a penny for every high-street look-alike / I’d be a happy man.”

In between tunes, however, it’s hard to believe they’re the same people. It’s like a flashback to your college days, overhearing the off-beat banter and inscrutable in-jokes of the small clade of stoner weirdos nestled in the corner of the common-room. But then they start playing again, leaping around like amphetamine-crazed macaques, knocking over mic-stands and careening into the gob-smacked audience, changing keys and time-signatures and direction at the drop of a hat, and you can’t be sure exactly what sort of joke is being played on you. But joke or not, Blakfish are a wonder to hear and watch; make sure you do so at your soonest opportunity.

Now it’s time for Outcry Collective, who are probably most fairly described as a foursome of slightly scruffy emo kids playing at being a Southern metal band. The only problem is that I can’t tell whether they’re doing it straight, paying homage or doing a pastiche, and I’m not entirely sure they’ve decided either.

Musically, everything works as it should - close your eyes and listen to the songs, and you’re in the territory stalked by the likes of Soylent Green or Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, all fierce metal riffola, heavy, loose and bluesy with the amps cranked right up over pounding drums and accompanied by mad-preacher howling. Being a younger band, Outcry Collective have brought some of the more modern tricks and tropes of metalcore and new-wave thrash to the party, meaning there’s a varied mix of hooks in their material, even if there’s nothing particularly distinctive or unique about their material.

Oh, they can play, don’t get me wrong - I’ve seen older and bigger bands than Outcry Collective play far worse, without a doubt - but the image isn’t quite complete. There’s been a half-hearted attempt at dressing up a little bit redneck-ish, the singer fades in and out of a faux Texan drawl between songs, and the guys on guitar and bass are well into their axe-hero showmanship (to the extent of borrowing boxes to replace the monitors they’re evidently accustomed to propping one leg on from time to time), but you’re left feeling they’ve either gone too far or not far enough. If they were to just play the music as is without the theatre, it would make more sense as a reappropriation or reinvention; on the other hand, if they went the whole hog with long flowing hair, Confederate flag belt-buckles and full-time characterisation, it would be more believable. As it is, Outcry Collective are caught between the two.

As is to be expected with a one-off five-act show, things are running a little late by the time Cut The Blue Wire get set up and ready to go, their set-up sprawling into the audience area due to lack of space. They’re the first to admit that they’re fairly well-lubricated by this point, but rather than manifesting itself as loose or sloppy playing their alcohol intake appears to ramp up their angular pop-punk into something much heavier than usual.

Perhaps it’s partly a result of following a bunch of bands with a much more aggressive aesthetic, but Cut The Blue Wire attack their own material with increased speed and ferocity, lending it a much fuller and harder tone than as recorded on their recent EP. The bass and keys seem to fuse together, thickening out the sound while the guitar riffs become sharper and more aggressive, and singer DD Ball sings and wails as if his audience were festival-sized and this was his last day on earth.

It’s quite the transformation if you’ve only heard them on record, but Cut The Blue Wire’s punk and hardcore roots are much more plain to see this evening - as is their sense of fun. Nearing the end of a national tour and playing to a hometown crowd who know them well, the situation is well suited to a bit of clowning around, and most of the audience are in the mood for it too. So there’s back-chat and piss-taking, and friendly arguments about which song to play, and plenty of grins from band and audience alike. While it may not have been a chance to see Cut the Blue Wire at their tightest and most focussed, it’s an opportunity to see the people behind the music unwinding after the hard slog of a few weeks sleeping in a transit van between bouts of disciplined professionalism… which is one of the best arguments I can think of for going to see bands from your local scene when they play at home.

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By necessity: because Live at Roadburn is the sort of album that has to speak for itself, and which does so perfectly well. Here are some basic facts about Earthless and their album to help you decide whether this is the right choice for you:

• Earthless are a three-piece instrumental rock band featuring former members of Rocket From The Crypt, Nebula and Electric Nazarene
• Roadburn is a Netherlands-based annual riff-rock festival - think Waken, but for stoners
• Live at Roadburn spans two CDs with nearly an hour and a half of music, but lists only four songs on the track roster

In case it’s still not clear, I’ll be blunt: if you find the idea of twenty-minute tunes that consist chiefly of a solid rock rhythm decorated with oodles of super-fast pedal-drenched blues-scale fretboard meanderings a turn off, Earthless are not the droids you are looking for, and you can go about your business.

Still here? Cool - that’s why I chose to make the review short. Now, you line up a few loaded bongs while I snare a couple of beers from the fridge; then we’ll sit down, blow our brains like old amplifier tubes and let Earthless run riot through the shards while we mumble about maybe taking a trip to Holland some time next year, man…

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Darker, more haunting, conceptually more groundbreaking and certainly over-emoted Acedia may be, but its nihilistic pulse is profoundly evident throughout. The occasionally stereotypical Goth vocals detract from the raging existential musical base which, astonishingly, sounds like a full band in flight but turns out to be essentially the work of one man.

Opening with the terrifying, foul-mouthed and controversial “Born, Brutalised, Bought then Buried” sets the tone for all that follows. This is nihilism at its most potent: from “Birth, School, Work, Death” via “Bornlivedie”, this is the final summation of the human condition as a life of pain and agony with no redeeming features. If you want joyous dance music, leave now.

History Of Guns do not make easy listening music, or even difficult listening music; some of Acedia is pure industrial noise. “Never Forgive You” clanks and clunks through certain phases of its running time with squalling, squealing sound topped by savage vocals and vicious words. The shuffling gait of “What Have They Done To Us?” is matched by the punk rhythms of “Never Forgive You” and broken up by the bleak electronic rhythms of “Killing Myself Until I Die” and “Empty Eyes”.

It’s a delight to hear a band that show no ego and no restraint, simply letting the message speak within the music. The thrust may be pessimistic and unswerving, but the variety of musical ideas is startling. History Of Guns are a fascinating and intricate proposition, and the hints of innovation and surprise on the double A-side single come to full fruition on Acedia, their multiple musical and vocal personalities welded together with noise and fear. It is little wonder that Acedia is defined on the album cover and apparently means: ‘a total absence of spiritual light. Spiritual torpor and apathy; ennui.’ So, all back to theirs for the party then?

Del Alien sings (and, I suspect, writes most of the words) but it is Max Rael who controls the music (being writer, player and producer). His world of sonic construction and manipulation is, at times, astonishingly open - and yet moments of dense and confrontational music appear all through Acedia. It is as if he has taken a pair of scissors and snipped up rock from the inside out; there are even moments where History Of Guns almost transcend their ultra-depressive aesthetic and aspire to reach Jesu-like realms of soaringly glorious redemption.

If Del Alien can just find his own individual voice, rather than aping Goth pretenders of old, History Of Guns will become massive. As it is, Acedia is an extraordinary musical work that promises much and mostly delivers it. With an eye on James Bond, they promise: ‘History Of Guns will return with Half Light‘. I, for one, can hardly wait.

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