Live Review: Refused

A single note drones over an older-than-your-average and increasingly restless Palace crowd. A black 'Refused' curtain drops, covering the stage, and we add another 20 minutes to the 14 years we've waited for the Swedish five-piece to finally tour their 'groundbreaking' album of 1998, The Shape Of Punk To Come: A Chimerical Bombination In 12 Bursts. As the banner drops, some wonky backing track mumbles and they launch into the album's title number – a statement of intent – as the downstairs crowd predictably goes fucking berserk.

Vocalist Dennis Lyxzén is a ball of energy, but he just doesn't own it. A whip of a man, he can move – he even pulls splits at one point – but where The Bronx's Matt Caughthran, say, can hold the crowd with the intensity of his eyes alone, Lyxzén's constant gyrations distract from the gravity of the situation. The playing is impeccable. The interplay between guitarists Jon Brännström and Kristofer Steen is flawless and fast. The sound is decent without being great and, moving through a chunk of the album early, they bring the required energy levels to do the album justice. Unfortunately, there's a mammoth in the room that goes by the name 'Nostalgia'. No matter how you try to escape it, 'dynamic' tempo shifts and whiney 'political' diatribes between songs stink of 1990's 'emotional hardcore'. It's only a trace element of the show as a whole but, like a mosquito bite, the niggle is disproportionate to the scale.

There are high points, especially deeper into the set where the band move into a more brutal and steadily tempoed phase. The Deadly Rhythm is the only true flash of brilliance, though Refused Are Fucking Dead, complete with fat-man stage invader, elicits the strongest mosh response of the night. They touch on at least a portion of The Stooges' TV Eye and moving into the back end of the set, when they finally drop the Swedish precision and actually cut loose, there are moments where you start to wonder what might have been. 

Destroying the audience with New Noise as the first encore number and going out with the highlight of the night, Tannhauser/Derive, is a deft touch – leaving sweat-drenched punters with a sense of closure (they're not ever coming back). But there was always a void between the statement this album was trying to make and what the band actually do. Shiny guitars, OTT stage theatrics and pouty emotional shit are not, were not, and will never be what 'punk rock' is about. What we can be thankful for is that it's not 1998 anymore and The Shape Of Punk To Come was not the punk that came to pass.