Tuesday 18/04/06 Polysics, Mugstar @ The Barfly, Liverpool

Mugstar wander on through mist and begin by cutting through the air with a sax that sounds like the end of the world. They emerge from the fog and proceed to go on a thundering sonic adventure, completely oblivious to the crowd. They swing awkwardly around the stage and each other gurning and bending and producing an array of strangely powerful discordant ‘numbers’ though sans vocals of any kind it is hard to tell when songs begin and end, or if they do at all. The sax cat, who appears to be the nearest thing they have to a front man, drops his brass, pulls up his hoodie, picks up a guitar and continues to crash through chugging sounds of doom. It’s a bold way of attacking this strange thing we call music but after a while the constant free-form noise starts to get boring, then annoying. They pull back attention briefly when Mr Hoodie finally picks up the mic, leans back and emits a primal scream. But the figures lurking about in the shadows of the Barfly auditorium have long since lost interest.

Post-interlude a strange cat with Vocoder emerges and announces: "HELLO. PLEASE. WELCOME. POLYSICS". Red flashes flit across the stage-Afro, asymmetric and pigtails respectively. We get just a ‘Hello!’, then virtually non-stop bonkers juddering squealing beeping banging yelling spiky day-glo infectious punk pop. Afro and asymmetric bounce and shudder, their fingers twist up and down guitars while pigtails slams the keys like an unhinged typist. How can they have so much energy? The front man, asymmetric, positively bleeds enthusiasm. There’s a pause for breath, amp fiddle, then asymmetric announces: "HELLO! WE ARE POLYSICS FROM TOKYO JAPAN", he flexes a muscle and says "GIVE ME FIRE, COME ON GIVE ME FIRE!" and oh yes we give him fire. The fact that they have no eyes, just rectangular visors, is a little disturbing. With their jerks and squeaks it really does feels as if you are watching automatons, pigtails in particular seem watch you. All the time. Wait what’s this?. She gets out Golden Pom-poms and we get another slice of printed circuit board punk. Asymmetric: "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" Red flashes leave the stage, crouch in corner, while a slightly bemused but happy crowd remains still. Then they leaps back, towel in hand: "OH YEAH, OH YEAH, BUY MERCHANDISE!" before leaving us with a bleepbeep version of ‘My Charona’. Genius.