大象传媒

The Cities We Captured are the opening act tonight and having to support The Continuous Battle Of Order is a difficult ask of them. What are two essentially instrumental acts, couldn't be much more different. 听The Cities We Captured have a more straight-forward post-rock approach, and while they show potential, they struggle to really captivate our imagination; it's almost as if they're here to provide us with a blue-print so that the headliners can come out later and tear it apart.

Jogging are the punk-rock filling sandwiched between the instrumentalists, having come up from Dublin to entertain us. 听They have a refreshing urgency. 听Their influences are obvious; pure DC sound, Dischord territory - nods to bands like Fugazi and Rites of Spring - but they also bring to mind Hot Water Music and Hot Snakes with the pace and anger in their delivery. 听They have some complicated guitar-lines, off-kilter drum patterns; they've been a perfect fit on tonight's bill and a pleasant surprise.

The Continuous Battle Of Order take to the stage next. 听Or not, as it turns out, as they've moved their kit down to the floor, the drums are in the centre of the room, facing the stage, and there's a chair directly facing them with a selection of pedals laid out in front of it. 听Craig takes to the drums and Hornby places himself on the chair. I'll admit, at this point, having never seen TCBOO before - but being a big fan of We Are Knives (Craig and Hornby's last band) - I worried for a second that I was about to see a more measured approach than their previous incarnation, a Knives-lite. 听I think it was the chair that threw me but I needn't have worried, they ain't no plastic cutlery. 听Right from the off, Hornby's wrestling his guitar like it's an angry crocodile, busting out mesmerising grooves, looping riffs on the fly and showing off the stunning technical proficiency that those who've seen him before have come to expect, while those who haven't are stood around, wide-eyed in stunned silence. 听He's jerking around, flailing his limbs and shaking uncontrollably all while staying, for the most part, firmly in his seat. 听It's an interesting visual, he's like an angry kid in a high-chair refusing to be spoon-fed. 听Maybe he's tired of being spoon-fed generic music?

To label TCBOO a 'math-rock' band would be too easy; they're almost like an aggressive jazz band. 听It's hard to tell how much of Hornby's guitar-work is improvised, if any, it all seems so chaotic but still faultless. 听Craig's drumming is stunning too - it's as if they're trying to out-do each other technically, especially with the way they're set up facing each other - but they're not in competition, they're very much on the same wave-length. 听At one point, Hornby sets up a floor-tom and leaves a set of drum-sticks on top, encouraging a little bit of audience participation while he goes off with another set of sticks to drum around Craig on his kit. 听We're all a bit too shy to join in but it's a nice touch. 听Amidst the whirlwind of noise, there's some hand-claps, Hornby sings out a few lines (without mic) and the set ends with the crowd chanting "we are all just pattern seekers". 听Tonight we certainly were, and discovering the patterns amidst TCBOO's chaos has been an absolute pleasure.

Michael Wilson