Why is there a show on a Sunday at 4pm? Normally at this time I’m stumbling out of bed in an effort to shake off the previous night’s inebriants. Today, though, is different: I am up and at the Paradiso, in the midst of a bit of a think while Six Organs Of Admittance fumble around with their stage set-up. I consider Sunday my day off – I usually work on Saturdays and for religious reasons, or at least historical reasons, everything outside of the tourist areas is closed on Sunday in Amsterdam. To celebrate this enforced P+Q, I sleep, have a good brunch, sleep some more and do little of anything. That said, the opportunity to see a band instead of loafing around with no particular purpose seems a good trade, only this time it’s a little different.

Six Organs Of Admittance seem to set out to provide headaches all round. From the minute core member Ben Chasny and touring mate Elisa Ambroglio pick up their guitars – and these are the only instruments used for the whole show – the noise begins and does not fucking stop. While I’m familiar with the droned, psychedelic musings this man has been making since 1998 and how popular it, along with his other high-profile project Comets On Fire, has made him, this level of tumultuousness feels uncalled for. It’s actually offensive, and here’s why…

In just a moment, as before the particulars a minor digression: these twin guitarists perform well, impressively even. Chasny is mingling with folk, metal, distortion useful and useless, all things psychedelic and, for the most part, the surprisingly full Paradiso enjoys whatever demented offering emerges from these notes and nots. A friend of mine even starts dancing - actually dancing. Plus, they take a stab at a Fleetwood Mac song. Impressive.

But despite all these positives – these myriad elements making most forget what time it is and dream like it was the middle of the night – my (and here we return to the offensiveness) ears remain set to ‘pissed off’. There’s a clang, a seemingly endless noise that persists and persists, never allowing any melody to escape its deafening clutches…this is what aggravates. Lo-fi roots Six Organs may have, but this is something else; something more sinister, louder and screechy. Definitely, definitely not lo-fi.

A little lo-fi does emerge eventually, as halfway through the set Chasny takes a break from the bombast to perform two minutes of strumming without Ambroglio. It’s welcome relief, as much of the volume stems from Ambroglio – her task aside from singing, I think, is to smack her guitar upside the head as much as possible in order to force out noise rather than go through any motions of making said noise herself. In addition, her stage presence is awkward, really awkward. She looks like a librarian – nice pleated skirt, cardigan, collared shirt, the whole nine yards – but acts like every movement is induced by seizure. All over the place she is, musically and physically. Awkward. Things do become unbearable, really – no song the duo offers forth helps salvage an increasingly messy mélange of drone and feedback. It is as if the airplane propelling these melodies stays on the tarmac, just to make a hell of a lot of noise pollution. Conclusion: noise bands, thought Six Organs don’t entirely qualify, are not for me.

Moments of brilliance and tangible and affecting dissonance can be felt within the tornado of sound, but there’s never enough light this afternoon to puncture the swathes of black sound. Whatever Six Organs’ music in this incarnation is trying to really say is blocked out, and I finally give up. After 40 minutes I am off before the encore, still with a damn headache; to add insult to injury, it is now raining. After being spun so evasively through a washing machine of sound, a date with a dryer would be nice.