Eagulls, Barfly, Camden, Saturday 10th February 2012

The initial reaction to Eagulls starting their set was how incredibly loud it was, which came as quite a shock The band members also looked quite incongrous. The singer was rocking an early-90s dole queue chic, carrying himself like a punk Ian Curtis. The bassist and one of the guitarist were grunging. And the other guitarist looked like he was holding down a well-paying office job.

They were incredibly tight as a band and produced a really great, coherent sound. Once we'd tuned our heads to the volume, they sounded really good, particularly the latter part of the set, or it may have just been that they'd put their stronger material towards the end of the set.

They had some great poppy moments (such as song with lyrics 'You don't care about me') and made us think of early Idlewild, but also of a heavier Vaccines or the Fall. The guitarist on the left hand side of the stage had some great early-90s British inide guitar sounds, which melded really well with the grungy arrangements. The singer had a swaggering charisma about him, and the fact that they were selling tapes, rather than CDs, also suggested a certain charm, so we'll keep an eye out for them and will be interested in hearing what they sound like in the studio.