Sunday 15/05/05 The Blood Arm, Red Organ Serpent Sound, The Prelude @ Barfly, Liverpool

It is one of the vagaries of the Barfly that they often put on a local band who bear no resemblance in a musical sense to the main attractions, which is certainly the case tonight. The Prelude (An apt name for a support if band ever there was one) produce music somewhere between The Pogues’ Irish craic and Shack’s stories of street life, with an added bit of Rock n Roll posturing to entertain the crowd. The fact that they can play this rather entertaining little set while clearly being completely inebriated is testament to the prowess of their livers. While hardly breaking new boundaries, The Prelude, manage to produce anthems for a drunken Saturday night while not drifting too close to pub rock.

What comes next leaves most of the assembled audience downright bewildered. Red Organ Serpent Sound enter the stage though the crowd wearing in no particular order; a black and white striped motorcycle helmet, a fur waist coat, 50’s style motorcycle goggles, and a red head scarf ala Lawrence of Arabia. The singer appears last and is somehow even more extravagantly attired dressed in a black rip to shreds suit, a battered top hat, a red balaclava, one red knee pad and a an oversized boxing glove on his left hand. Many people will talk of this band simply in terms of the way they look but that is not to say that they don’t back it up with an amazing set.

Red Organ Serpent Sound combine dark, satanic riffs in the vain of the Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster, Ray Manzarek of The Doors style keyboards and thunderously pounding drum beats. All this is the back drop to lyrics and song titles as extravagantly obscure as their attire. The front man rarely stays still for longer than 10 seconds, wheeling through the audience while producing a mixture of screeching banshee wails and an amazing theatrical rock voice. The sparse audience rarely have time to breath as the band put on a performance more imaginative and explosive than any other they are likely to see this year.

The Blood Arm have a hard act to follow, but front man Nathaniel Fregoso from the off shows he is not one to be out done. He’s caught the disease of the Red Organ Serpent Sound’s singer and spends most of his bands set running round the audience kissing them in between writhing on the floor and jumping up on to the drum kits. The band from LA, favourites of Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, produce tight indie pop tunes with a theatrical and exuberant edge, Fregoso’s vocals switch from joyous caterwauls to dark, brooding dirges with great ease.

At one point Fregoso halts proceedings to bless one of the audience, picking out and unwittingly embarrassing a young man by kissing him on forehead and cheeks. Then it is back down to business. Songs such as ‘Do I Have Your Attention’ and new single ‘Say Yes’ are instant live classics, with shout along lyrics and danceable riffs. It looks as if another band from the states could be crossing the Atlantic and invading our shores for chart success in the very near future. The night ends with typical dramatic effect, Fregoso storms off stage and disappears into the darkness leaving the rest of the band dancing on stage to a wall of feedback. Indie theatrics galore, we like it!