Out The Box club night

Although the Out The Box club night is still in its infancy, the fact that over 100 people are packed into a tiny bar in a small town somewhere between Nottingham and Derby on a Thursday night should tell you something special is happening...

Playing the graveyard slot while most folk are still trying to find the venue is a daunting prospect for any band, but for Leicester four-piece The Falling Leaves it's merely water off a duck's back. Their incendiary tremolo-glazed rock is steeped in pre-Britpop reference points such as Ride and The Weather Prophets, while their three-way vocal harmonies are a joy to behold.

A few more songs matching the calibre of 'Stone' and these leaves could be falling and laughing gleefully for a while yet.

Fellow LE dwellers Sub-Rosa (pictured) are a ferocious kick up the rear end for any budding artists sat around waiting for something to happen. They've riffs the size of juggernauts and a spare tank of kryptonite waiting behind the drum riser for those mid-song moments where everything is about to go apocalyptic and precociously loud.

Think The Cooper Temple Clause in their unimpeachable heyday ('One Age Paradise'), or the likes of Komakino and The Walkmen for sheer density and atmospheric perplexity of a synapse-bursting kind ('All Panic!', and just about everything else). Or, in the case of vocalist Col Beattie, think someone with the range of an aural cruise missile set to ear-shattering levels.

Following Sub-Rosa isn't going to be easy, but then Censored have never been ones for complacency or letting things slip.

With an imminent mini-tour supporting We Are Scientists and their first single release due before Easter, tonight is their opportunity to road test new material alongside several staples of their set, one that has seen them gatecrash the introverted East Midlands scene and take it as their own.

For a three-piece unashamedly influenced by classic bands of the ‘60s - think Spencer Davis, The Yardbirds and The Small Faces - Censored make a tremendous noise all of their own, and in twin vocalists Matt Henshaw and Nathan Clarke possess their own junior Marriott/Lane combination. This lifts seemingly traditional standards like 'Get It On' and 'When You Come Along' to the echelons of the Mojo Club, circa 1965.

The undoubted highlights of the set, though, comes in the form of forthcoming single 'Blow It Out My Mind (L.I.F.E.)', which sounds like The Rapture being caned by headmaster Weller, and the powerful-yet-sublime 'In The Presence Of The Lord', whereby the aforementioned Small Faces' 'All Or Nothing' takes on a boisterous deluge of Mancunian blusterers and wins by a country mile.

As Censored leave the stage covered in sweat and beers, a lone punter is heard to remark that they are the best thing to happen to Ilkeston since the local leisure centre got a swimming pool. On a wider scale, tonight's show is sure proof, if ever anyone needed it, that the real resurgence of Midlands-based music is happening in the East.

Sub-Rosa picture by Jo Scott