The Swarm

If you were given the choice of how to spend your birthday, how many of you would choose the option marked "ear shredding mayhem plus the sight of a young girl being repeatedly beheaded" as your number one? Come on now, don't all rush at once...

When actually, that kind of noise and collusion is the perfect conclusion to a nine hour drinking session. First though, a special mention to Nottingham scenester supergroup God's Chosen Dealers, who boast a Grip, an X-Ray, a Wolf (of Greece) and a Killer of the Buick Six amongst their members. Not just content with knocking out epic garage punk riffs aplenty, singer Nathan Jones spends a large proportion of their set showering himself in the front two rows' beer before ripping his shirt off. Even if they never make it onto record, their 20 minute live show is a melange of co-ordinated noise and destruction and ultimately the kind of thing that legends are made of.

Not that The Swarm should ever have any problems attaining that kind of status, as already, only a handful of shows into their existence, they've already split the masses into two distinctive groups. Those being that you simply either love them or hate them - there's no room for inbetween here - although when their long playing opus 'Red Paint On The Odessa Steps' is unleashed in the autumn, expect a few more to place themselves firmly in the luurve camp.

From the off, The Swarm make their intentions crystal clear, indulging in the kind of swamp driven blues that Jon Spencer has nightmares about and Rowland S. Howard owned sole manufacturing rights to back in the day. Pitching themselves somewhere between The Birthday Party's malevolent cynicism and the Blood Brothers' happy(er)-go-lucky nihilism, The Swarm are like a concoction of cyanide, nails and nitro glycerine, shaken and stirred then served in a coffin shaped vat, finished off by an unhealthy dose of fear for dessert.

At the heart of it all is frontman Callum Thompson, who prowls the stage with a beguiling stare, occasionally engaging in a slow-motion kind of fit that causes the entire audience to take three steps back. Your idea babysitter he most definitely ain't (sorry Callum), but as an accompaniment to the black and white horror show emanating from the projector on the wall behind him, even the great Dennis Wheatley couldn't have scripted it better. When he ambivalently declares "We're exposed!" for the final time, the sound of goose pimples rising to the fore are deafening in the extreme. At the end of the set, his fellow cohorts leave the stage to a hail of feedback and distortion, no doubt off to construct their own individual grime noir scores.

Children, you have been warned.