Matthew Knott

Whatever the typeset of their name, they are rocking. 

Fronted by East End hard man and reformed preacher, Demetrie Wyatt, the deep-writing, hard working threesome consists of Demetrie and Gareth from their previous band, Stations Of The Cross. Gareth has moved from drums to lead guitar, with Demitrie picking up the mighty four-string, and a new guy whos name I forget, on drums, he had a good jaw line, whoever he was.

The band has really moved on in terms of the sound, songwriting, but also the technical accomplishment of the music. It's a much more developed, more complex and visceral (instinctive) sound. It just goes together so much better now. The sound to me was a mix of Bush, Maximo Park and the Strokes (I think the Strokes only came to mind because of Gareths guitar playing style). The image is good too, they look more like a group that belongs together (not wishing to sound disrespectful to stations departed members of course). Gareth was amazing a guitar, looked much more relaxed than he did on drums, and pumped out some fantastic riffs throughout the set, I was very impressed. The drummer was solid, really suiting the songs. I'd never heard Demetrie play anything except his arse before so it was refreshing to hear, and again, a very good performance from him, coping especially well with having to play and read the words at the same time to a couple of songs.

Demetrie sang beautifully and passionately as always, but there was greater emotion in his voice than in the previous outing. Talking to him after the set, I tried to liken the transition to that of a band going from playing teenage rock songs about scabs and such like with more of a comic twist, to serious hard rock and wonderfully relatable lyrics.

This is an evolution that Pikachu would be proud of, and I can't really give them the write up the deserve. I can't wait for the studio versions of these tracks to be available, I will listen to them on repeat all day long.