Oom

On the surface, a name like Kids Kill Conscience might conjure up images of your most excessive emo nightmares coming true. What it actually amounts to is the solo project of From The Shards Of Comets! guitarist Steven Poulton, and it's a rather inventive and quite dramatic at times departure from his day job, as it were.

Not so much a case of picking up the last few remnants of scattered comet shards, but more a case of Get Coat. Wear Coat. Burn It Incessantly, as the eerie sample that propels instrumental 'Tolerate It, Please' into pseudo-Coppola territories and parental disappointment closer 'Your Only Son' are a testament to. The only downside here is perhaps Poulton's lack of self-belief at times, but a few more shows of this intense nature and the confidence will come flooding through.

Next up are Brighton foursome Oom, essentially the project of one-time Massive Attack collaborator Debbie Clare, and despite the fact that their press release makes them sound like they've been stuck in a timewarp since 1997 their on-stage persona and quite-eclectic racket proves otherwise. While the hardcore and hip-hop backbeats resonate profusely against a riff-heavy wall of sound, it's Clare's vocal that steals the show, veering from a Kate Bush-like falsetto to parallels of Liz Fraser's irrepressible lullabies-cum-gobbledegook that ultimately create an extra form of instrumentation out of one voice. While musically their set doesn't differentiate that much from one song to another, Clare takes the show into another dimension at times, such is her sheer power and unpredictability. In a good way of course.

So far so good then, and with Napoleon III's profile having been raised considerably thanks to his gratifyingly successful appearance at this year's Leeds Festival, things are about to get even better.

Armed with nothing more than a guitar and his trusted tape machine this evening, the most striking aspect of Napoleon IIIrd's set is the huge propensity of sound one single man can make. Shut your eyes for a second and you'd expect the stage to be filled by some 12-piece orchestra. Yes, it's that good, and what's more, he has a pretty impressive collection of songs at his disposal too. 'Defibrillator' is a healthy concoction of random beats and intricate chord-play polished off by Napoleon IIIrd's semi-hushed vocal, while new song 'My Superiority Complex' is all grandiose and layered to such an extent that it could almost be a studio recording. Of course, no set by Leeds' most enigmatic troubador would be complete without the rousing finale of 'Hit Schmooze For Me', and only the chaotic rumblings of the ancient tape machine prevent Napoleon IIIrd from returning for an encore, for which he duly apologises.

Quite simply, Napoleon IIIrd is possibly the most visionary solo artist on the planet at this moment in time. If he isn't massive by the end of the year I'll eat my woolly hat. Vive la Révolution!