Sometimes you can come too far too soon. Like a horde of sabre-wielding barbarians who’ve descended upon Rome filled with fly agaric and murderous intent, only to discover too late that they’ve left the heavy artillery back home, Hundred Reasons have made the leap from toilet circuit to 1,000-capacity arenas in a mere 12 months, capturing the hearts and minds of metal kids and music press alike, earning themselves three chart hits in the process. But tonight it sounds like all energy, no tunes.

It doesn’t help that the venue’s over-18s only licence means the crowd is sparser than might be hoped for with a consequently muted atmosphere. Not that such trivialities can damped Hundred Reasons’ concrete-busting enthusiasm. They sprint on stage and immediately start firing on all cylinders. And for a couple of songs it’s fucking great, an all-action heavyweight musical brawl. Hundred Reasons seem to have tapped into that difficult hardcore/pop crossover, a successful formula that’s seen them on TOTP while retaining their underground credibility. But once past the initial blast, they seem to be hanging onto that same formula a little too closely, until it all becomes wearing and a little suffocating.

Their best songs carry echoes of Jane’s Addiction in them, or hark back to pioneering UK emo heroes like Understand, but too often songs like ‘Dissolve’ simply sound like a wall of fuzz, something not helped by a sound engineer who also appears to be unfamiliar with this size of venue. By the time hirsute singer Colin Doran announces that “This is an old b-side” you can’t help but think that so are most of the other songs they’ve played tonight. It’s wrong to dismiss a band as significant as Hundred Reasons though. They’re spearheading a move into the mainstream for UK punk and metal. It’s just that you wish there could be something a little bit more special to celebrate.

Sue Foreman