大象传媒

"Listen to good music, bands that mean something, there's too many bands don't mean s**t." Already the pressure surrounding Gallows, the hype and hoop-jumping that comes with being the band of the moment, has taken its toll.

From the stage their whippet-thin vocalist Frank Carter, announces, "two days ago I was ready to quit this band, but the thing is we're like brothers", he pauses, eyes scanning the room, pupils like the points of screwdrivers, before turning to look at guitarist Steph and add "...he actually is my brother!"

Biological, emotional, whatever the ties that bind them, this band of brothers has soldiered on, fetching up at Auntie Annies, ready to liberate hearts, minds and limbs with their senses pummelling compound of classic punk and vicious hardcore.

It is intense, Gallows administering 40 minutes of their short, sharp, shock therapy to the capacity crowd. They rip into a cover of Black Flag's 'Nervous Breakdown', down the front bodies come into violent collision, the frenetic rhythms and cut-throat guitar fuelling a sense of abandon, whipping the onlookers into a boiling lather. They might be heralded as the future of rock, but they also embody something of its past, 'Sick of Being Sick' tapping into the dark heart of punk, The Pistols, The Clash, Gallows giving vent to their fears and frustrations as so many young men before them have, with an unholy roar of righteous anger.

They unleash their 'Orchestra of Wolves' upon us, if rabies made a sound then this is it, a feral, demented cacophony. Technique falls by the wayside, but precision seems so much less important when you can summon such power, such sincerity of intent. Gallows mean it alright, mean it so much it hurts.

Francis Jones