Shred Yr Face @ Glasgow School of Art, 18 Oct

Even the art school kids can let loose tonight. Times New Viking inaugurate both the shredding of yr face and the mutualisation of yr Tennent's with a handful of crooked pop melodies. Not as hissing, fuzzy, or in every way distorted as in the studio, the live trio strikes you with the flesh-and-bones of their tunes, without sparing you the utmost cacophony they can muster, of course.

The No Age duo rip through their fragmentary numbers, most of them ending before you get a chance to lose all abandon. Their closer—Everybody’s Down—sustains itself long enough to open a little window of chaos. Guitarist Randy Randall jumpstarts the thing with its preemptive two-note strum, and before long he’s climbing onto the stage’s massive speaker rack—nearly up to the ceiling (and it’s a big venue)—and the guys launch into the loud clatter that wraps up the song. Randall inserts the neck of his guitar into the lighting rig and leaves it hoisted up there (crazy feedback), climbs down while Spunt bashes away, and wiggles the instrument by its dangling cable. It falls, hits a photographer (hopefully not ours), and bounces on the floor. But nobody’s hurt, smiles everywhere, and Randall holds up his guitar with its headstock snapped off.

Headliners Los Campesinos! kick out those jams like a seven-piece indie pop machine. By the time You! Me! Dancing! gears up its bass-drum/guitar-slashing overture, even the hardcore punks can’t help but tap a foot. It’s a party—with Los Campesinos!’ exuberance front and centre—but many of us are still visibly getting flashbacks from the opening blitzkrieg of noise-pop.