The Gussets @ Subway Cowgate

One of Edinburgh's most reputed home grown acts have returned after a disturbingly long absence from the Lothian scene. What they do is done with grace; picture a social gathering between 35 year-old nude-models, lesbian painters, bearded ladies and semi-corpulent French gigolos and you get a feel for the massive crowd pulled down to the Subway tonight. The five ladies in masquerade-outfits enter a 'stage' full of wigs, leopard patterned textile-pieces and enough various decorations to suit an acid-fuelled scene from 'Fear and Loathing in Las Cowgate'. So why is it so brilliant? Can they play? Barely. Can they sing? Possibly. Is their sixties Garage/Psych/Voodoo inferno the most exciting thing you've heard for ten years? Not really, but in a world where bands have forgotten that live music should be a show, a fuck-fest; a spectacle to lobotomize you of modern society's atrocities, The Gussets have got everything beautifully right. [Chris Nordeng]