It started with a squawk.

What’sreallygreatright, aboutwritingwithfewspaces, isthatitcan, onoccasions, lookfairlyshithot. Of course you can’t fucking understand owt, at least not on a cursory casting of the eyes; The Locust – as anyone who’s read about the wide world of rock music during the last decade will be well aware of – ink their arrangements onto scrawled pieces of notepad-torn paper in this fashion: tightandpacked, quickandsharp, blitzfuckingbomb, ratatatatatatatat. Execution: technically astounding, synapse-poppingly intense, and utterly without soul. Understanding is one level of interaction; investment and endearment quite another.

The point, you’ll argue, and correctly so: this isn’t music for the masses, to touch a nerve beyond a prodding with a blade or to warm cockles left chilled by the general inanity of what can and does pass for inventive hardcore nowadays. The Locust have always traded on hate, on fear; perception preceding experience, they’re tarnished by a brush entirely of their own making. Each album, a reinvention; yet there’s little about their latest bout of live slogging to suggest that record most recent New Erections was a deviation from the accepted. Tonight, at a far-from-full Underworld, they plough through motions most horrid – appealing on a prowess level – and fail to engage a large portion of the assembled not-so-many.

It’s a far cry from halcyon days circa Plague Soundscapes; then, with the mainstream infected and NME jerking to the tune of ten-outta-ten, possibilities were abundant and attentions buzzed critical. Safely re-ensconced in the pits from whence they initially sprouted, it seems The Locust are presently doing their bit to shun wandering might-cares – taut to the point where the simplest on-stage slip could snap a set in twain, the Power Rangers-clad four-piece are an exercise in emotionless extravagance, indulgence without any gratification. They are boring.

Sorry: theyareboringbutit’sunlikelyyoucareasyoudigthem, whichisfineanddandy, afterallthisisbutoneopinion, outdatedandtiredoftrying. Once there was a happening, but nothing came of it; now, with on-record ideas stretched, it’s criminal that an act as potentially devastating as The Locust are, tonight, but a shadow of the band their studio work suggests they’re easily capable of being. Stunted, stagnant, they’re hamsters in a giant wheel incapable of onward movement: distracting but temporarily and, ultimately, easily filtered out of one’s attentions.

It ended with a piss, well before scheduled.