With two Irish brothers, two Frenchman and an Italian as members, Cyclefly must surely be a band in favour of European monetary union.  Tonight we catch them on the first night promoting their forthcoming second album 'Crave'.  The two support bands were nondescript - Hollow Conscience did the thrash/death metal clichés with typically gravelly voices, and Cortizone were just okay, using lots of chord progressions seemingly nicked from many other indie bands.

Formed in 1995 and with the excellent 1999 debut 'Generation Sap' under their belt, Cyclefly sit roughly halfway between Korn's heavy metal sound and the more conventional melodies of nineties indie - lead singer Declan's tinny voice is reminiscent of Placebo's Brian Moloko, yet with a Gatling gun delivery and more venom.  The band's set was all of about 45 minutes, but the new songs sounded impressive and extremely confident.  Declan's vocals cut well through the mix, sitting comfortably above the crunchy, processed guitars.  He seems a natural choice for a frontman, sporting a mini Mohican on his newly shaven head and appearing like an intensive, possessed and bastardized Tin Tin.

At some gigs, previously unheard songs can make the audience slightly sedated, but these new tracks were distinctive and lively from the outset.  The forthcoming single 'No Stress' got two airings, as if to convince us we should go out and buy it (don't worry - I will).  Older tracks such as 'Crawl Down' and 'The Hive' had the modest Tuesday night crowd leaping about at the front as if at a much larger rock concert - I now sport a bruised chin and still have aching limbs from jumping around irresponsibly at the front!  Highlight of the short set was 'Supergod' which prompted an audience singalong, with Declan waving his microphone at us seemingly behaving as if he were on stage at Wembley - which surely goes to demonstrate the man's confidence.

My only gripes would be about the abruptness of the set when they have such a decent back catalogue of material, and the slight lack of their more mellow and atmospheric material such as 'Whore' and 'Slaves'.  The band have perhaps been away a little too long between albums to be playing the UK's larger venues, but I find it hard to believe they are only playing modest venues such as The Joiners, when their well mixed live sound and clever songwriting warrants much more attention than received tonight.

Fellow late-nineties rockers A are fortunate enough to have at long last earned a place on the hallowed Radio One playlist, thus guaranteeing them a UK tour of reasonably large venues.  On the strength of tonight's new material, and in an ideal world, Cyclefly would well deserve such an accolade themselves.

Review: Andrew Morrison