Brought together by shoplifting, forming a band long before they learnt to play and dressing like Lou Reed on a thriftshop budget, Black Wire talk the talk and walk the walk with style. Can the sound possibly live up to the promise of the image?

Well: hell yeah, Motherfucker. Like an incest (official collective noun, don’tyaknow) of hillbillies forming a Stooges covers band, Black Wire are an absolutely beautiful misconception. They rock, oh yes they do – but they do so in a dark and backward manner which creeps up on you from an entirely unnatural angle and trickles gently into your mind so that your feet seem to tap of their own disconcerting accord. Black Wire’s Cramps/Suicide lo-fi sound feels at one and the same time cautious and instinctive, thoughtful and primal: there’s a touch of cabaret in the foot-stomping rickety jangle and stylised vocals and the whole thing is spooky, uneasy and quite possibly indicative of some deep-seated perversity in its perpetrators.

Which all adds up, of course, to its being utterly, utterly fantastic. More, please…