Dillinger Escape Plan @ Cathouse, 15 Feb

Like a poised guillotine, it's only right a wait so agonisingly protracted as Dillinger's three-year absence from these shores should be ended with the atrocious velocity of Panasonic Youth. A single gasp and the hydraulic whir of 43% Burnt is upon us, forcing the hurried conclusion that this is not going to be a night of quietly catching up between interspersed crooning.

The pit is writhing like an orchestrated fit-pact by epileptics anonymous, Ben Weinman's pick is bludgeoning the guitar with every swipe of his wide but precise thrashes, and Greg Puciato is hanging from the light rigging like a grotesquely sinuous bat. The band-crowd dynamic gets booted upside down by DEP as they regularly pounce into the sweat-drenched entity before them.

As guitarist Jeff Tuttle and Puciato are chaired through the room and Weinman hauls himself hand-over-hand by the rigging to the back, their finest balance of math-o-metal and musicality – Sunshine the Werewolf – screeches out the night's ferocious entertainment. [Jamie Borthwick]