Live Review: Refused, Nuclear Summer

The room is more than half-packed if not unenthused for Nuclear Summer's first couple of tunes, but their metallic post-hardcore piques – and keeps – interest. They're most captivating belting out thrashier fare, ambient flourishes providing the audience too much chance to remark on the vivid neon blue ceiling (this evening's closing song, a great example). New song No is under-rehearsed but its melodic nature hints at where the band might take their already diverse sound. Endless Kickflips Forever sounds positively anthemic and is perhaps the best example of Nuclear Summer's diversity in genre, working seamlessly. 

A tense, anticipation-building drone pumps through the PA, the crowd starts a slow clap – is 21 years not long enough to wait? – the stage lights go up, a guitar chord is struck, the band strike up into The Shape Of Punk To Come, a curtain drops and Refused are revealed, in all their furiously energetic glory. The Refused Party Program follows immediately, just as madly as its predecessor; the entire band project a wave of energy as frontman Dennis Lyxzén flails about deploying his usual tricks – mic tossing, stand throwing and using every inch of the vast stage.

He howls out Liberation Frequency, the song a perfect specimen to prove Refused's diverse fanbase, as the crowd chants along gleefully. He dedicates Rather Be Dead to Pussy Riot (after a quick, surprisingly not-particularly-preachy word on music as a counter-culture movement), the song as dark and vicious as on record, with an added kick courtesy of the band's immense onstage presence. To say they play with precision is an understatement: they're positively perfect, but perform with enough guts to avoid being boringly so.

The marathon wait to see Refused in the flesh proves worthwhile as Summerholidays Vs Punkroutine slams headfirst into a pummelling The Deadly Rhythm, but instead of the record's impelling jazz breakdown they launch into The Stooges' TV Eye. Refused Are Fucking Dead hits with force and Lyxzén literally steps out into the crowd; clutching punters proudly hold him aloft as he launches into the final melodic chorus. The set proper finishes as classic 1998 record The Shape Of Punk To Come begins, with a lengthy and satisfying Worms Of The Senses/Faculties Of The Skull.

While it takes a few awkward minutes to get them back on stage, all is forgiven when the first notes of New Noise splutter out and the throng erupts, anyone who hasn't been screaming along joins in. A chunk of the crowd makes for the doors straight after, though the majority who stay for a brilliant Tannhäuser/Derivè are well rewarded.

Is Refused's reformation an exercise in nostalgia? Perhaps. But it's one delivered with more power than we've seen in a long time.