Support act The Glugg make discordant no-wave noise that incorporates atonal saxophone and manipulated vocal samples to create a dense and confounding atmosphere riddled with anxiety and dread. Discernable melody and structure isn’t of much interest. It’s music that demands a response and a reaction, whether that is a good or bad one, and deserves respect for the sheer bloody mindedness of it. Positioned in the corner, virtually behind one of the amps in a Cossack hat, is one Don Bolles of The Germs and Ariel Pink’s backing band fame. Adding improv guitar to the unfolding cacophony. He’ll be back on stage later doing the same thing with Destruction Unit.

Claw Marks certainly make for an entertaining watch. Their lead singer lunges around in a linen suit, wrapping his mic lead around pillars and crowd members and falling onto the gear, much to the resentment of the sound guy.

Destruction Unit are loud. But apart from that there isn’t much else to learn from seeing them live. Such relentless levels of noise can flatten your sensory experience in a way that is oppressive. Not oppressive in the same way the sheer power is, but how boredom can oppress. It doesn’t communicate anything, the only reason it exists is for its own sake. Really the loudness is a blatant case of overcompensation. The song-writing just isn’t there, neither immediate nor experimental enough. It’s deceptively middle of the road.

At the end Destruction Unit descend to even more noise and feedback, seemingly pushing it as far as possible before it’s not physically possible to stay in the room anymore. People in the room begin clutching their ears and I remove my earplugs just to see if it really is that bad. It is. When noise is being too blatantly used as a means of communicating you to “get the fuck out of the room”, what makes people stay to endure it? To get their money’s worth of permanent eardrum damage? Unfortunately it’s not a question I’m interested enough in finding the answer to. And I leave the room with the amplifiers still ringing.
Louis Ormisher