Thursday 29/01/04 Modey Lemon @ Barfly, Liverpool

It’s strange to find that, even after two years of an abundance of scuzzy garage-rock bands stealing the headlines in the music press, Pittsburgh three-piece Modey Lemon have been relatively overlooked and have not been lumped into the same dominant class. Stranger still, they’ve been around for three years, so there’s been plenty of opportunity. The fact that they’ve been somewhat ignored for all this time is an utter travesty, because they have the most devastating garage sound that’s been heard on these shores for years – Stripes et al included.

It’s a cold night. The crowd numbers aren’t amazing, and some of their stuff doesn’t work. Does it stop them beating the living shit out of their instruments in a set that leaves you off kilter and with your ears bleeding? Most definitely not – über-heavy punk on a ripped-up blues scale runs riot – Modey Lemon are rife with energy. Drummer Paul Quattrone plays so hard and dirty he could drill through the floor – he even has At The Drive In hair, while the hoarse-throated Phil Boyd regales us with songs titled ‘Predator’, ‘Poisonous Ink Clouds’ and ‘Tongues’ to an apocalyptic groove. A couple of synths add a sinister electro backdrop to it all, and combine with the drumming to make a relentless angry rumble.

A particularly shoddy effects pedal is thrown violently against the floor at one point, not so surprising when you come to realise there aren’t many other bands that keep a ‘list of destruction’ on their website, which seems to grow every gig. ‘Thunder and Lightning’ indeed – Modey Lemon are badass in the truest sense.

Photos by Sakura Henderson