Dogs

The Casuals resemble the kind of band often seen gazing at their Converse while playing at school assemblies around the country. Thankfully the sound they make is not so shy, they come on a little like The Music with the Roses turned down and the Zep turned to eleven. Sadly, songs like `Mister Mystery’ and `Good People’ reek of the kind of Dadrock authenticity that saw Britpop die on its arse. A tune towards the end that conjures up a wall of sound supported by a mastodon of a bass line shows that there’s hope for them yet.

Johnny Cooke swaggers up to the microphone and looks out across those gathered to see him and his pack. He speaks. “We are the wilderbeasts of…” What they are wilder beasts of is drowned out by the squall that marks the beginning of `London Bridge’. Johnny’s right though. There is something beastly about his band, something a little grubby, a little brutish, that sets them apart from the glossy precision of your Franz’s, Kaisers and, er, Blocs.

Johnny, looking like an Iggy impersonating the Borrell, is goggle-eyed and jabbing at the side of his head with one finger while guitarists Rikki and Luciano let rip with shards of dirty splinters of sound. It’s not hard to imagine that this what Oasis would have sounded like had they listened to more Pistols and less Beatles, as Johnny sneers “I liked you better when you liked me better as well” at the climax of `She’s Got A Reason’.

While not so much innovative as incensed, watching Johnny spitting dejection and venom amid a guttural aural pummelling, you realise that Dogs are worth giving a shit about because they’re up for the fight, they DO believe the truth.

“My brain seems tuned to a different station” howls Johnny at the finale. They’d be fools to touch that dial.