So, shall we be saved? Austin’s power gang are here on such a mission - to take punk rock by the scruff of its wretched neck and ring some life back into it after damage inflicted by the moronic likes of Blink 182. Not to mention the damage inflicted upon their own selves by the good folks of Inbredsville, Texas last month, which caused the cancellation of their European tour. So tonight the black-clad quartet are dispensing wisdom and wine in true Christ-like style before launching - and for once that word is appropriate - into the rock pit.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are smart cookies. Their every move has been meticulously planned, from that name and the Velvets-like retro-cool, to the sound that’s borrowed extensively from Sonic Youth circa-‘Bad Moon Rising’ and the mayhem-to-order that constitutes so many of their gigs. (Genuine nice guys that they are they’ve politely heeded the request from the management not to destroy the venue tonight). In this they really are no less a manufactured product than Steps or S Club 7, only the sound is so different. And the sound, when it’s doing its righteous damage, is quite magnificent. Less so when the band take a diversion from their tight, hit-and-run attack and decide to jam out an unnecessary twenty minute over the requisite forty. An hour is pushing it a bit and even the moshpit has calmed down to a gentle bobbing mass by the end. One hapless punter in the front row is picked out for - gasp! - yawning, but really, he’s got a point. Each song is choreographed to end with a climax that suggests the end of the set but there always seems to be more to come. And that’s not very punk rock. Still, there’s showmanship aplenty, the best bits do indeed rock our socks off and for all the contrived nature of it, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are proof that it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

But the real stars of tonight’s gig are support act The Rock Of Travolta. They parade through their magnificently orchestrated set with all the pomp of returning emperors, swapping gear mid-song without a pause, fusing the raw, grumbling power of a twin bass assault onto the scouring synth and trumpet burn. Purely instrumental, The Rock Of Travolta are like six well-oiled cogs in a musical machine that can dive from the heights of coruscating Add N To (X)-style electro malevolence into soporific, almost classical Morricone atmospherics at will, leaving dirty, scuzzy tyre tracks across your soul in the process.

Everything they do is seamless, belying their meagre six-months together in the live arena, they have such a keen grasp of dynamics they could be designing spacecraft. And they look so damn cool too, everyone clad in basic black, like the New York art school collectives who once shaped this kind of soundscape. Multi-instrumentalist Phill Honey pauses before the last number, ‘I Am Your Father’, to announce that it was voted 19th best song of the year in Oxford in last month’s Nightshift, before quickly proving that really, it should have been scrapping it out for top spot. So, ladies and gentlemen, it’s another new year, and here are its first stars. The name of course is a joke, but The Rock Of Travolta are deadly serious.

Dale Kattack