Live Review: Nasum, Psycroptic, Dyscarnate, Captain Cleanoff

Captain Cleanoff may have released an album called Symphonies Of Slackness but these guys are no slouches on stage. Their unique brand of rollicking grindcore proves the perfect start to the night and the five-piece leave the stage having won new converts to their cause.

It's still unclear why Dyscarnate chose a moniker only half a step removed from that of James Murphy's legendary death metal outfit but there's no doubting that these guys are one of the better representatives of the fertile UKDM scene. For a three-piece, Dyscarnate pack a mighty wallop and their no-frills, head-down, mid-tempo approach is refreshingly honest. The boys prove themselves a well-honed death metal wrecking ball and are well worth checking out.

Psycroptic stand head and shoulders above the tech-death pack for the simple fact that they are concerned more with crafting good songs than merely proving they can play the fastest. A headlining act in their own right, the guys stride on stage and proceed to tear the crowd's head off with a perfectly executed set. Older straightforward blasters such as Ob(Servant) and Skin Coffin are greeted with a sea of banging heads but perhaps the most frenzied reaction is for the more groove-oriented material from this year's The Inherited Repression. Psycroptic prove that they now walk among death metal's elite.

Thank God Nasum decided to have a belated last hurrah. Apart from perhaps Napalm Death, Nasum remain in a class of their own. In the space of an hour the Swedes (and one Finn!) unleash a grinding maelstrom in the form of a couple of hundreds songs (well not really – but in true grindcore fashion Nasum do churn out a host of 50-second tracks). The precision of this band is more akin to a finely-tuned death metal act than a grindcore outfit, with Nasum delivering note-perfect renditions of material from each of their studio albums, as well as contributions from some more obscure splits. Of particular note is the impressive job done by Rotten Sound's Keijo Niinimaa, who belts out Mieszko Talarczyk lyrics with an intense and controlled fury. Regarding the man himself the band play it pretty low-key, and apart from dedicating a block of tracks to him treat the night as a celebration of his achievements rather than a funeral. Nasum may now be officially dead but they remain the pinnacle of grindcore perfection and the band all new grinders should mark themselves against.