Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi are an eclectic group.  They’re running round the Lomax now, sporting uber-geek visors with flashy neon lights, shouting their particular brand of…whatever it is.  The singer can’t sing – well, not really.  His guitar work is sometimes embarrassing, sometimes frankly awful.  They have no tunes.  They wouldn’t know a melody if it was shaped like a wet fish and slapped about their faces.  They want to sound like Pavement, Green Day, Bis, Clinic and Mercury Rev. All at the same time.  Which probably explains why most people are confused, startled, angry or, in some cases, audibly guffawing.  This band is a fucking embarrassment.  But more importantly, this band is fucking brilliant.

Which is more than can be said for Thirteen:13.  When you have just had the raw, naked confuse-athon of Mo-Ho, what you really don’t want is an average white indie band.  Haven’t bands like this died yet?  Does anyone really care anymore?  I mean, really care?  Yes, they were nice, they had some beautiful little bits, a couple of seconds here, a bridge there.  But they are so eminently boring!  God help us.  There is no point in a band like this.  They make Travis and the Dum Dums look like cutting edge pioneers.  The Lomax shrugs and carries on with its collective pint.

Which brings us nicely to the headliners.  My Vitriol have got a lot to prove to some people.  Some have already taken them to their hearts, based purely on fantastic singles ‘Cemented Shoes’ and the current chart-hopeful, ‘Always: Your Way’.  Which is unfortunate, because this is the only department in which they genuinely sound like the future of British angst-rock.  Som, although looking more like an alt.god by the minute, is still a shy little boy with the stage presence of a moody rabbit in headlights.  They have a tendency to over-indulge in the instrumentals, without ever quite making that final stab at your heartstrings.  The sound, common to all gigs I’ve seen My Vitriol play, is appalling, losing the clarity of their recorded songs, only marginally rising above the ‘this is a bit of a mess’ barrier.  This occurs on the afore mentioned singles, which encourage some limited and pointless crowd-surfing (to which Som asks the offenders to “fuck off and watch Limp Bizkit or something”).

However, there does seem to be some kind of musical evolution going on - ‘Pieces’ is dropped from the set – the band allegedly don’t like it anymore – and they do seem to be slowly getting tighter.   The Nirvana influence seems to be – thankfully – decreasing, as it was getting slightly nauseating.  Its now clear that this band have the potential to be sonic noise pioneers playing over effortlessly catchy pop tunes, and that type of bus doesn’t come along everyday.  One day, this band will only receive almighty praise.

Collen Chandler