This Will Destroy You @ Ivory Blacks, 28 June

It’s all too easy to be down on East Kilbride’s The Clock, such is their out-of-tune opening instrumental and later dalliance with screamo clichés, but at least one of their four post-indie cuts shows songwriting aptitude, leaving us with a little hope for the future.

The heavier-than-an-anvil-shower What The Blood Revealed are an altogether different breed, jam-packed as they are with raw sludge power and an impressive collection of intricate yet cripplingly potent riffs, as they demonstrate the brains of Pelican, the attitude of Johnny Cash and the apocalyptic splendour of Neurosis to showcase half an hour of beautiful, bloody brutality.

Despite The Lava Experiments’ imposing name, they don’t pack the same sense of naturally destructive prowess as their predecessors, but what they lack in power they make up for in dexterity and inventiveness. Guitarist Fraser Rowan not only shares Jimmy Page’s penchant for big hair but also his love of creative licks and it’s this that gives their atmospheric rock such a vibrant scope and colour.

Texan quartet This Will Destroy You demonstrated on this year’s Tunnel Blanket that there was more to them than a competent grasp of dynamics, but it’s now up to them to actually prove how far they’ve advanced and initial signs are definitely positive, Chris King’s stoic demeanour and tremolo picking offset by Jeremy Galindo’s rougher style as he rocks out as hard as a seated guitarist possibly can.

It’s when the stratospheric chord progressions are reined in and they begin to concentrate more on pedal-bound atmospheric tweakery that the advancements in their sound start to creep through, shaping their compositions into vast noise-laden soundscapes and, while it certainly makes for an interesting and occasionally haunting change, after over an hour of shifting between these two pre-defined modes the lustre and appeal of the night begins to fade.