If two bands constitute a "scene", Brighton is currently home to one of the UK's more febrile ones. Along with bass/drums duo Royal Blood, the Wytches are making a case for the return of primal psych-blues, served up raw and ungarnished. The trio operate at the dark, bad-drugs end of the spectrum, producing a potent, doomy sludge.
It would certainly be intriguing to know what singer-guitarist Kristian Bell, bassist Dan Rumsey and drummer Gianni Honey make of their ascent. Tonight's grinding, groaning display suggests that they're possibly too immersed to even notice what fans think; when a moshpit develops almost under Bell's nose, he doesn't even glance up from behind his waterfall of hair.
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This is the last of three gigs today, a London/Brighton stunt undertaken to celebrate the release of their debut album, Annabel Dream Reader. Given that they've already been on stage twice in the last four hours, they're remarkably vital. They thrashily surge through nine songs, though it's not easy to work out what they're playing; at a guess, that vicious, Horrors-ish goth/metal hybrid could be the album's first track, Digsaw, and there's a scream-and-twang surf-punker that might be the single Gravedweller. The rest is anyone's guess – there's no written setlist ("They don't know what they're going to play till they get on stage," says a guitar tech) and the acoustics in this pub venue emulsify their doomy intensity into a soundalike mulch.
It's frustrating. On the album, Bell's distorted surf riffs play against a variety of distinctive dark sonic backdrops, but here the whole thing is fogged over – although not enough to prevent you thinking that the Wytches could soon occupy a significant niche.
• At Rough Trade East, London, 27 August. Information: www.roughtrade.com. Resident Records, Brighton, 28 August
