Saturday 20/02/10 Citadels, Hexa, Internet Forever @ Proud Galleries, Camden

Once the sole shared preserve of teenage musos, rip-off dealers and a handful of sentinel punks with nowhere left to run, a night out in Camden Town is slowly loosing its shit-hole appeal to an infringement of coffee houses and trash-mag friendly celebrity boozers.

It’s a changing look illustrated by Proud’s peacocking clientele, where unfortunately for tonight’s opening act Internet Forever, high heels, weekend geezers and Grease themed hen parties detract in part from the unlikely bellowing vocals of Laura Wolf, which propel the beautifully rough rounded pop of ‘Break Bones’, ‘Centre Of Yr Universe’ and ‘Cover The Walls’ through a short and sadly underappreciated set.

Next up, squeezing shoulder to shoulder on stage is Hexa. An eight-piece from Brooklyn, their indescribable explosive method acting flanks a schizophrenic mix of avant-garde country punk disco that starts with ‘Word Culture’ and ends in ‘Hot Dog Stand’. A self-belief fuelled, sect-like ensemble, Hexa’s music has no discernable beginnings or ends and instead is based on a bombastic barrage of unexplained exaggerated middles, which extend from the hilarious to the embarrassing. Cramming seventeen tracks into thirty-minutes and favouring quantity over quality Hexa’s set is a spectacularly brave if not amusing failure.

The exact opposite is true of London based Citadels, whose stage presence is announced by front man Stefan Ferguson speaking for all of Proud with the words “I am sick and drunk”. For an unassuming three-piece Citadels exude an infectious stage presence that on face value is unlikely but as demonstrated through opening tracks ‘Animals’ and ‘Shake’ is all consuming despite the transience of a beer stained crowd.

Communicating the subtleties of layered indie synth pop to a room full of shit-eating grins is no mean feat but Citadels have it cracked, blowing away any objections to the contrary with the captivating vocals of multi-instrumentalist Lucy Taylor during the jaw drop ‘Sons Of Clovis II’. Moving out of unchartered territory and into single release familiarity ‘Golden Islands’ and ‘Chemical Song’ bring the second of tonight’s performances deserving of far more appreciation to a glittering end, the Citadels proving in the process that despite Camden’s changing exterior, its musical nouse is reassuringly intact.