The Domino State

January can be a desolate time as far music is concerned. The longest month of the year, often the coldest and perenially the time where commentators on self-advocated pedestals advise all and sundry who we should be listening to over the year ahead. Of course they're also the same people lamenting the so-called death of guitar music, but enough time and words have been wasted on that subject already, so we won't bore you with any more.

Thankfully, the people at long-established London independent label AC30 have no interest in hipster tips, or Radio One playlists, or doom mongers telling them their wares have become extinct. For almost a decade they've been hosting club nights, releasing records and putting on live shows of distinctive quality to an increasingly loyal audience both in the capital and far beyond. Tonight is no exception, the less than salubrious confines of the Barfly declaring their first event of 2012 "Sold Out" long before this evening. Maybe someone should tell the likes of McCormick, Lynskey et al...?

Certainly anyone walking through the venue doors at the relatively early time of 7:45pm would struggle to convey such an argument. Local outfit SPC ECO - a family affair in every sense of the word - sound like a melange of sweetness, light and destruction all thrown together in one industrial haze. Former Curve mainman Dean Garcia has trained his offspring well. Close your eyes and daughter Rose Berlin's dulcet tones ring out the same honey dripping dramatics as Toni Halliday back in the day. Except here, son Harry knocks out tortuous shards of pedal-induced distortion from his six-string like a latter day Trent Reznor still discovering the art of noise. There's one moment on the incendiary 'Give You Nothing' where it feels like the room is about to cave in. Further inspection reveals they've just about destroyed the PA. Brutal in every sense.

Meanwhile, Manchester ensemble Daniel Land & The Modern Painters take the obligatory idiot's guide to shoegaze and bathe it in swathes of textured ambience throughout their short-but-sweet five-song set. Moonlighting from his numerous other roles as a member of Engineers, The Steals and riverrun respectively, Land's unassumingly shy demeanour acts as a perfect foil for his largely personal musings, and on the gorgeously restrained 'Smiling In Slow Fashion' and closing 'Within The Boundaries' reminds those present why 2009's Love Songs For The Chemical Generation was one of 2009's most understated, yet resolutely perfect long players. The one new song aired this song, penultimate drifter 'Echo & Narcissus', suggests his forthcoming album The Space Between Us has the potential to usurp its predecessor.

A similar fate appears to have beset The Domino State. Rock Gods on the Reeperbahn, yet still relatively unknown outside their native London here. 2010's excellent Uneasy Lies The Crown should have been their springboard to arena-sized territories. Instead, they're still operating at a level far beneath the levels their stadium sized verses and anthemic choruses are intended.

Playing a set mostly comprised of material from their debut, the six-piece exude a confidence and determination usually reserved for bands of a far higher status. 'You Are The Winter' bears all the hallmarks of an English National, 'We Must Not Shut Ourselves Away' radio friendly rock that would be on any sane producer's daytime playlist and 'Firefly' arguably the most beautiful lighters-in-the-air moment that Snow Patrol would cut off their right arms to be able to write. Singer Matt Forder looks genuinely taken aback at the response, particularly at the end of the set as punters refuse to leave until the band deliver an (unplanned as it happens) encore.

Three new songs are debuted this evening, the best of which, provisionally titled 'No Glory' makes a play for skyscraping heights War era U2 conquered three decades ago. With recording due to commence any day soon and a second album promised before the year's out, there's no better time than the present to discover one of the UK's best kept secrets; The Domino State.