Reuben

I’m trying to imagine how a band like Septembre forms. Wrestler grows dreads and decides to wallop drums really hard instead of other people, meets bloke from Easyworld’s gothic older brother for vocal work and finds bassist reaching for the same Tool hook at Riffs ‘R’ Us. The singer’s eyeliner-framed glance pierces the room, before another mammoth bass-heavy, drumskin-destroying post-grunge interlude grinds it way across the floor and vibrates up your trouser leg towards your ribcage. This lot seem to mean business, folks.

The Holiday Plan, meanwhile, scream emo, quite literally. Broken guitar chords for introductions? Check. Greasy locks swept forward over face? Check. Waist of short trousers dangling somewhere around the lower thigh? Check. The odd ‘discrete’ facial piercing? Check. A bit more screaming? Make that triple check. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you’ve recently had your heart sawn in half by someone with greasy locks swept over face etc., but if you’re in search of revolution then stick to the free paper aeroplanes (now they are cool, are they not?)

Then there’s Reuben of course, the three-headed pop-punk (but not like that) beast that seems to be getting angrier by each single. Once was a time when they seemed so timid, cowering from the Old Bill for being too violent and so on, and now they’re foaming at the mouth about the head honcho of cheesy horror flicks. What’s going on? And frankly, does it matter when the tunes actually, somehow, get better? Book-ending the set with songs already at semi-hit status, this does mean that tracks from forthcoming long-player ‘Racecar Is Racecar Backwards’ don’t appear as riotously anthemic as others. But seeing as ‘Freddie Kreuger’ is their boldest, catchiest, shoutiest, quite possibly best single to date then maybe we should give ‘em a few months to seep into our psyche and allow, say, ‘Stuck In My Throat’ or ‘Let’s Stop Hanging Out’ to continue doing the job. Evidently one aimed at the ‘old-school’ tonight as they go as further back in time than ‘Wooden Boy’ and ‘Dolphin’ and play B-side ‘Eating Only Apples’ as if it’s about to douse the planet in confusion. Don’t fret if you’re a new convert, though, because the group have that quiet/loud tactic transformed to a loud/loud one for effect, and will convincingly become your new favourite grunge-pop urchins every time they drop a song like a hot potato. Go get sweaty, kids.