This Is Music presents...

"Ever feel like you were left behind?" Sean Hencher yowls at a despondent punter's face. Lovvers have landed.

It was a fairly subdued Thursday night at Henry's up until this point, one where a slightly restrained yet criminally ignored performance from two thirds of Motherwell's The Aphrodisiacs set up a subtle tone of brittle melancholia. Shorn of any electronic tendency, the duo quickly ushered the stripped-back and self-deprecating stylings of Arab Strap to the fore. Fumbling and coughing their way through the closing bars, however, this silent introspective glory takes an almost comical twist.

An air of the bizarre then lingers throughout a downbeat excursion into quietened shoe gaze territory. Captained by Diamond Sea, the outfit somehow end up on the rocks when they end an uneasy voyage by incessantly repeating a riff blatantly derivative of 'Bombtrack' sans any kind of funk and the wikky-wikky wa-wa.

Which brings us to the pivotal moment where Lovvers awaken this Cellar Bar with their eyes closed. Poised over their paraphernalia until their singer clambers to the stage, the Nottingham outfit soon belie any preconceptions implied by their college boy looks with a discordant attack on the senses. Accordingly, being privy to one song in the company of such wild eyed urgency is all it takes to reel everybody in the house down to the front. With an uncompromising ethos and a sound possibly descended from the Descendants themselves, the back line throws down a feast of rabid mini riots while the delirious Hencher attempts to enrol every member of the audience – one by one – into an impromptu punk-rock karaoke duet.

_ "You don't have an opinion!"_ he screams with a reveller as the carefree misadventure of his limbs sees him boot an unmanned smoothie across the dance floor. As if anybody who had just witnessed this 20-minute long ruckus could slide out of the door without one.

Photo taken from Lovvers' MySpace page, here