Cold In Berlin – Give Me Walls

This London-based four piece specialise in a kind of pummelling, apocalyptic goth-garage, and sound like they’d be a lot of fun live. Their debut never lets up – it's a relentless procession of bellowing female vocals over jagged guitar lines, underpinned with meaty bass riffs and rambunctious drumming. Influences are clear: the vocals bear up well next to Siouxsie Sioux or PJ Harvey, while the guitars and rhythm section come across like a more aggressive take on Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ razor-edged garage.

The songs are well-crafted enough, the build-ups and crescendos recalling Be Your Own Pet’s thrilling, frenetic exuberance. Occasionally they may want for BYOP's youthful humour, and the lyrical content isn't strong enough to maintain the atmosphere of tension and aggression they aim for (Inertia, for example, is cringey sub-grunge angst: “he loves the hurt, she needs the pain”). But if you can live with that, there’s cathartic energy in abundance here. [Sam Wiseman]