Bristol fashion: Warmduscher go West

A Thursday night in Whale City and Warmduscher (the love-child of Fat White Family and Paranoid London) have just slunk onto the stage, festooned with Stetsons and bowties. “Good luck” I warn, eye to eye with lead singer, Clams Baker, “I’ll be watching you”. A siren winds up and the night explodes.

You can’t watch Warmduscher without affecting this kind of Weston saloon cliché. In fact, the band practically invite this kind of dirty talk with names like The Saulcano (lead guitar), Mr Salt Fingers Lovecraft (bass) and Lightning Jack Everett (drums). Yet they are far from being a parody; Warmduscher are a tour de force - a truth that their live performance attested to.

Not many bands can put together a 45-minute wall of sound that extends, dives and melts songs together without pause for breath (thanks to some clever electronic trickery courtesy of the group’s Paranoid London connections aka Little Whiskers).

Tracks taken from their new album, Whale City, were belted out at full speed like a steroid injection for the already-pumped crowd. Only “1000 Whispers” - my stand out track of the night if I really had to choose just one - gave the audience chance to wipe down the sweat and reset for another onslaught of complex, shout-out-loud, razor-sharp noise.

If you love dirty, sleazy rock that climbs out of the speakers to assault you with irony and a crowbar then go and see Warmduscher. If you prefer a cup of tea whilst listening to The Archers, don’t.