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This Is Wreckage @ Clwb Ifor Bach

My word This is Wreckage are loud, even with ear plugs in you could feel the ringing starting and I pitied those who came without. The valleys trio stayed away from audience interaction (the brief bit of talking from their front man was just to tell us he doesn't talk much!) and focused on battering our ears instead which was, surprisingly, no bad thing even at 6.30 in the evening.

With bands like Big Black and The Jesus Lizard being cited as similar in the Swn write up I went along with interest. Live you could really hear these references come to life, their tunes had a hypnotic quality, with husky vocals over loose strung bass, heavy hit drums and sometimes discordant guitar but they definitely still have a sound all on their own, which is well worth checking out. The three piece pounded out dirty, nasty tunes to head-bang to and the crowd responded with a sea of nodding heads and appreciative clapping. This simply put was heavy duty alt-rock done very well, which was a cracking way to get the evening started, not the biggest crowd, but one that certainly wanted to be there and all seemed to go away happy.