Playlouder - Music is the Network

This is a band with much more respect for its pedals than its guitars. During the set up the instruments are leaned haphazardly against amps, knocked over, trodden on and generally bashed about.

The frontman’s six string looks to have been dragged across concrete for some miles – perhaps hanging unnoticed by a broken string from the back of the tourbus?

Who can say? Regardless, after tonight’s performance there’ll likely be a few more nicks and notches on the bruised body of his axe, which is already the colour of sour cream, flecked with sawdust.

A Place To Bury Strangers make more sense live, and yet, do their best to confuse; while their singles bill them as a sort of edgier New Order-meets-Jesus And Mary Chain, on stage their songs are meshed together into an impenetrable Chinese Wall of sound, and feedback supersedes both vocals and instruments.

Armed with a vicious bastard of a rhythm section and more pedals than the Tour de France, Oliver Ackermann doesn't so much play the guitar as flay it, almost constantly vibrating the tremelo arm at the speed of a blur in a way I’ve definitely never seen before. (Admittedly, I’ve never seen Kevin Shields.)

It all has to reach breaking point somewhere, and as - for about the fourth or fifth time - the distant, echoing vocals give way to fierce string laceration, pedal manipulation and stage-straddling, Ackermann disentangles himself from his guitar and rips apart the strings, bashing the body against stage and amp, and anything else in the way.

The rock ‘n’ roll cynic in me cannot win over against that part of me that appreciates pure and undiluted noise. 

It’s not the end though – there’s a spare guitar, and somehow, “the loudest band in NYC” – tonight the loudest band in London – reshape and regroup for a final assault like ill-advised musical adaptations of the T-1000 android of cinematic fiction.

This time when Ackermann’s vocals kick in the crowd hears it, (or feels it, rather – the words aren’t the weapons). A wave of air bursts from the speakers, to the point that with each breath that enters the microphone, those of us closest to the front are almost knocked off our feet by the bass. 

For a moment I thought my eardrums had burst; this is the first gig I’ve been to that I can categorically say has permanently damaged my hearing.

But isn’t that what it’s all about?