The look? Top hats and surgical masks. The sound? The bluesiest dentist's drill you'll ever hear.

Just don't expect Clinic to make any concessions to tradition, Halloween or not. We're talking here about a band who've always sought to avoid any unnecessary pomp or circumstance; one that's continually thrived just below the surface of the mainstream's radar courtesy of Domino's unwaning support, and one that, ten years ago, thought nothing of calling their first single 'I.P.C Subeditors Dictate Our Youth'. In other words, one to be admired.

What are they doing here, though? A stage this size isn't really the place you'd expect Clinic to be most at home but tonight they are nothing short of sensational, a tightly wound spring of musical invention through searing noise and unconventional song structures. The reason they're held so dear by a select few isn't just because they're a band doing things differently, it's because they're doing something so different so well.

Theirs is a musical beast inspired equally by the rattle and throb of The Velvets' garage-rock and Can's krautrock rhythms; it's that combination plus Ade Blackburn's distinctive clenched teeth delivery that makes them a particularly sore thumb in modern terms. That... and the utterly filthy organ sound. Plus, how many other bands can you name who use a melodica to such great effect?

Both instruments sound fantastic set against the sparse, regimented backbeat - like a set of pistons given the Spector treatment (no, not put in a pine box... made to sound big) - pumping out of this surprisingly intimate arena's PA.

Malevolent Internal Wrangler track 'The Return Of Evil Bill' is a standout tonight, its pied piper-esque melodica part seeping into the collective conciousness and urging not just feet to move, but brains to tick. Questions like 'how is this band not better known, or more widely acclaimed?', and 'how are Arcade Fire going to top this?' are floating around DiS'.

A new song ('The Witch', we think) even has a relatively conventional chorus - not that Clinic songs tend not to, they're just normally buried beneath layers of fuzz and ideas - but is played at a typically manic tempo. It's not only the speed that impresses, though, it's the control. This is certainly a band who know how to play.

They end on clinking, clanking Visitations opener 'Family', and it's during this song DiS' mind starts to wander. Nothing to do with the quality of said song, in fact quite the opposite. Is it just too ridiculous to talk about any modern band in the same terms as Captain Beefheart or The Velvet Underground, we wonder? Probably, but in Clinic's case it's really fucking tempting.

Before you ask, we're not going to even attempt a review of Arcade Fire. Sorry. Pick any score between 8 and 10. Not only have they been covered countless times already but this particular incident rendered any words shorn of expletives out of our vocabulary for describing the events that unfolded. Needless to say, thanks a lot to whichever idiot decided to put a dampener on what was, up to that point, one of the best performances we've had the pleasure of seeing from Butler and co. You spoiled it for us, and no doubt for them also. Nice work, you absolute cunt. Oops.