Friend leaves, dissolving into the middle distance as the beer takes hold of senses only recently rescued from the day before’s birthday excesses. There’s a mumble in one ear, fracturing the bombast coming from the makeshift stage up front… “Mike… Mike… you alright?”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Of course I’m not. When the Hell is anyone okay when in the presence of Trencher, the sound of three asylum-escapees made real through cheap bass licks and cheaper keyboard tricks? The gel that holds the whole is drummer Liam, a man so brilliantly unhinged – resplendently bare chested and be-hatted, as is the norm’ (all things relative) – that he practically mounts his kit some onetwothreefour… several times during a set so potent it severs those senses from their anchors with the subtlety of icy razors through liquorice laces. Fuck me brutality wears a wire tonight and reports back with stories of insane-core gone consumer friendly – this place is rammed. Perhaps the Happy Hour has more friends than I gave it credit for? It is, after all, one that gives without ever taking much away.

But Trencher Trencher Trencher… tonight is not your party however much you make our ears cry out for mercy. Tonight belongs to local punk-a-rock-a-rollers Bullet Union. This is their (album launch) party and they’ll cry and cry and cry until you fuckin’ drunkards scream it all right back in their salt-blasted faces, spit sweat spunk an’ all. There, guitarist Paul stands hunched like a staked vampire, his crooked fingers treading the board like they’re doing the Can-Can. Frilly skirts? No, they’re fingers. Drummer Robin flails faster than supercharged mescaline-riddled squid play Swingball – watching the man beat his kit into early retirement is utterly beguiling. Anyway, the point: this is so fucking intense that my circuits are scrambled beyond self control – arms jerk and knees poke out at those stood immediately ahead. Cameras flash red against white walls, silhouetting our punk protagonists like wild-eyed rabbits in the headlights. Of what? A breakthrough? Just maybe, baby – no wall of solid steel could successfully keep such a ferocious pack from sinking their teeth into fresher meat.

Baby? Meat? Mescaline-riddled squid? Happy Hour? Sweet…

Image lifted from New-Noise.Net. Please don't hurt us...