"Hallo. We are The Cosmic Dead from Glasgow and this is us at home, playing a set of music for you!", so bellows the normally very placid looking Lewis Cook after turning to face the audience following the initial 11 minutes of sonic battering the band have given us tonight. I know it's been 11 minutes because the guy to my left has been filming the entire first song and it's displayed on his screen. Get a life buddy. Ironically the set's being professionally filmed anyway.

At home the band certainly are though. For some acts that would mean bigging up their place of birth to the already converted and having baying fans agreeing that this truly is Eden. Not for The Cosmic Dead though. They pass the Buckfast amongst themselves and keep pounding away. Whether the booze is what in fact fuels them creatively, just something they happen to like or an ironic prop is unknown but it has the effect you'd expect either way. What songs do they play? No idea but that's of no matter - volume, mastery of what they do and taking great pleasure from it & just letting it all hang out on stage are what they're all about tonight (they were tight as fuck but more restrained last time I saw them) and they give the impression of being in for the duration.

On their final momentous number ("15 minutes? That's not even long enough for an intro") the guitar though becomes unusable, the keys almost tumble to the floor and a microphone is lost in the minor chaos of their rescue & things have to thunder to a halt. The crowd doesn't go wild but then it's hard enough to just clap after such a pummeling. Mind and senses numbed you wonder how any act can follow such a performance. Do these words do it justice? Not in the least.

White Hills get themselves set up (tonight has seen a lot of kit needing replaced on stage for each act) and launch off at the pleasingly high volume that's featured throughout the night. Having found them electrifying in larger surroundings at the Liverpool Psychfest a couple of years ago the prospect of seeing them in the compact basement space of Nice 'N' Sleazy's had been tantalising since seeing the date advertised, a fact shared by a great number of others too given the size of the crowd (which in a way seemed to have changed from that which was there previously). 

Something however just wasn't, for me, ticking all of the boxes. Whether it was the choice of songs ('No Will' from recent album Walks For Motorists has always seemed a bit of a plodder) or the band were just in the touring zone or something else, there was a sense of motions being gone through and I didn't feel engaged. Mine was most likely a minority of one but if you're not feeling it past the halfway point of a set then you're unlikely to be pulled back from the brink and just have to write it off.

Opening proceedings tonight was Leeds' one man noisefest Girl Sweat. Unintelligible, sonically punishing blasts of lap guitar and self-help levels of howling make up his short set as he pads about the place bare-footed, killing his own electronics in the process. A rambling, shambling, Hawaiian shirt clad mentalist.

The Cosmic Dead's new album Rainbowhead is released on March 25 and is available from amazon. 

Here's a stream of it:-

The year’s first snow has arrived just in time for the launch of Super Hyper Giant’s debut album, Retro/Futuristic. The band have developed a unique brand of alternative pop in the vein of Everything Everything and Alt-J. The album features many contributors including former Smashing Pumpkin Nicole Fiorentino.

The six piece band that main man Jonathan Savino has assembled to bring this labour of love to the stage play with the confidence of a seasoned crew. They seem comfortable on stage and banter with the audience and each other. Most of them play more than one instrument throughout the set and three backing vocalists provide a solid foundation over which Savino is given licence to swoop and soar. Savino himself is in his pyjamas and dressing gown for National Pyjama Day. He has been entertaining preschoolers for Irish Autism Action and implores the audience to donate.

They open with ‘The Universe’ which sets the standard for the set, changing tone and tempo frequently. Such variations are the band’s hallmark, both within songs and from one to the next. Super Hyper Giant’s live show is delivered according to the rules of ‘Just A Minute’ with no repetition, hesitation, or deviation. The next tune swings from early Snow Patrol to some double bass drum action on the outro.

We get an alternative version of the recent single, ‘Always’. The songs have been adapted from the studio versions for live performance. Super Hyper Giant was born in the studio as a solo effort but grew into something more complex. The live show is the reigning in of ideas that expanded in the studio. It is more conventional than the record but still inventive and effecting.

A grungy rock 'n' soul version of ‘Sally Seems’ has some very Whitesnake lead guitar while ‘Fantastic Voyage’ blends late period Beatles with Hall And Oates, and throws in a melodic guitar solo for good measure. There is no lull or dip in quality through the set. Super Hyper Giant are consistently entertaining and involving while being effortlessly entertaining.

The sound is as questionable as ever in the Whelan's upstairs annex and it takes some manoeuvring to find a sweet spot where the mix is listenable and the vocals aren’t ear-splitting but Super Hyper Giant have no trouble overcoming the venue’s shortcomings. Having only the one album to draw from, the set is inevitably quite short but the quality of the songwriting and the assuredness of the delivery mean that it comes across like the festival setlist of an established act with three or four albums under their belts. Definitely one to keep an eye on.