yourcodenameis:milo

You have certain expectations of a band whose debut EP is titled ‘This Is Our Machine And Nothing Can Stop It’, namely momentum, drive, dynamism, and a sheer unfettered avalanche of sound. And So I Watch You From Afar effortlessly deliver, bringing a brain-annihilating barrage of rhythms and rottweiler, what’s just been kicked in the knackers, fury. It’s an awing show of musical strength. Looking across the venue I spot yourcodenameis:milo cowering in a corner.

ASIWYFA are of the instrumental post-rock ilk, but put away your childish Mogwai comparisons: they are far from being a flat-pack clone. Tonight we get prog, autobahn-cruising rhythms, flitting firefly guitar and jazz odyssey improv. Songs such as ‘I Capture Castles’ and ‘The Machine’ are ominous cavalcades of sound, the rippling percussion and primal riffs relentlessly battering the audience.

The belligerent snarl of ‘Screaming Ground’ instantly informs us that yourcodenameis:milo are in no mood to take a spanking from their support act. Indeed, few bands have as visceral a live presence as an on-message milo. And tonight they are fluently, poetically, noisily on-message; they are a musical slap round the chops, demanding our attention, the playing for the duration of this performance tighter than a miser’s fist.

Though the majority of the set is, inevitably, drawn from current album_ They Came From The Sun, there is more than enough from the back catalogue to sate the considerable, ‘loved ‘em from the beginning’ contingent. The heavens-questing guitars of _‘Seventeen’ push up and out with all the might of a Hungarian women’s weightlifting team. And if the guitar playing is fine then the rhythm section is formidable. The bass on songs such as ‘I’m Impressed’ and ‘Evening’ is unusually heavy, rumbling like the stomach of an obese man with a wired-shut gob.

And, as if we weren’t already feeling disoriented enough, frontman Paul Mullan decides to ratchet the surreally shell-shocked factor up a notch or two by playing the encore sporting a large horse’s head. It’s a photo-finish between tonight’s two acts, but headliners milo take it, the gracious winners declaring ASIWYFA their new favourite band and leaving us with a thought on previous touring partners Enter Shikari: “shit, shit, shit”.