Thursday 29/11/07 The Futureheads, Dananananaykroyd, HiFi Handgrenades @ King's College, London

“We haven’t played in England for 25 years,” announces The Futureheads’ frontman Barry Hyde to a jubilant King’s College crowd. Having been unceremoniously dropped by label 679 for an underwhelming and underperforming second album in News & Tributes, tonight’s performance, their first English gig in over a year, has all the hallmarks of a landmark show.

With the first single, ‘Break Up The Time’, from their forthcoming third album harking back to the spiky punk-pop of their brilliantly bizarre debut, things seem on the up for the Sunderland quartet. Playing to a crowd that included music journalist heavyweights and industry exec’s, the band tear through a glorious set of old and new with the gusto of a returning heavyweight champ.

Earlier though, as the elevator to the fourth floor Student Union groaned under the weight of the rapidly arriving masses, Detroit’s Hifi Handgrenades’ blaze through a set of Descendents-esque punk-pop with songs like 'Sunset to Sunrise', 'Stupid' and 'Smiling Judas' taken from their soon to be released debut album.

Stumbling on stage like a bumbling bunch of misfits from University Challenge, Glasgow six-piece Dananananaykroyd quickly incinerate that misled, ill-advised theory. Lambasting the stage with the kind of experimental noisecore-indie or as the band call it: ‘fight-pop’, usually reserved for a Blood Brothers album, they bludgeon through a mentalist’s set-of-dreams.  To say insect-thin frontman Calum Gunn is a nutter would be lying – he’s ****ing disturbed! The wee twiggy even went as far as pointing out the punters watching from the mezzanine and signed the cut-throat motion. In-between fits of violent writhing and twisting like some kind of demented animal in serious, serious pain, Mr Gun and the equivalent of musical Shock and Awe,  Dananananaykroyd, put on an... erm, interesting show...

Still, for all the support act’s theatrics, the sheer joyous punk-pop gobbledygook of songs like ‘Meantime’, ‘Decent Days and Nights’, ‘Skip To The End’ and ‘A to B’, makes the Scot noise addicts look like an intellectual musical wank. Why? Because The Futureheads are back, and after what seems an age in indie exile, the band has never sounded fresher. Appearing along side the majority of songs from their debut album, and the unmistakable absence of almost all from ‘News & Tributes’, are new, fresh spiky gems of weirdness. Akin to the originals such as the raucous ‘Piece Of Crap’, tonight making an appearance in the band’s encore, that made us say “What the...?” and fall in love at the same time, it’s clear the band want to resurrect their career. And with their third album due for release early 2008, The Futureheads have already set the standard for new music in the New Year.