Swans / Buke and Gase @ The Liquid Room, 13 August

Hearing protection at gigs is a common enough sight among the more safety conscious. For Swans though, day-glo foam ear plugs are considered a pre-requisite and are handed out by judicious door staff ahead of tonight’s show. They prove necessary too, even for opening act Buke and Gase. The experimental Brooklyn-based duo utilise home-made instruments and craft some energetic and propulsive cuts, at times coming across like a post-punk Joanna Newsom. Unfortunately, the deafening volume of their headliner’s set-up obscures some intricacies but the pair hold attention for an otherwise well-judged half-hour slot.

On record, Swans’ Himalayan peaks are preceded by some pretty arduous schlepping and live they prove no different. For thirty minutes, grizzled leader Michael Gira orchestrates his current cohorts through a hostile terrain of unrecorded songs, clearly still being shaped on the hoof. Other members look taught throughout, as if Gira is on the precipice of fucking with them. Yet when the metronomic rhythms and sheer riff repetition begin to take hold, the mood relaxes, not least within the audience as heads begin to bob to the tribal beat.

The necessity of those ear-plugs, near-ubiquitous from where The Skinny can see, initially proves something of a barrier. But a little recalibration and a step back from the fray ensures a sweet spot can be found for all. Oddly, Gira himself provides some levity with a rare bit of chat about a mid-eighties Berlin tour that involved projectile vomit and a disco floor. All too aware that tonight’s impending disco will curtail this show though, the sextet launch back into business before literally bowing out, theatre style, to a battle-hardened crowd. [Darren Carle]