Let us salute, then, the genius of The Icarus Line. They have, casual scientific research suggests, precisely no tunes. Instead, what passes for songs are shapeless, flailing rackets. Pretty much everything they say, play or attempt to do is entirely incoherent. Their singer, Joe Cardamone, looks like a Zombie Julian Casablancas.
And controversially enough, these are all plus points. For The Icarus Line - five improperly young and generally quite short men from LA - make the art of shouting over loud guitars seem magical and radical once again. As timid Starsailor fans may have gathered by now, no-one leaves this inevitably sweaty gig humming the hits: that's hardly the point.
What is the point? That occasionally, great rock 'n' roll can be sustained through attitude, dynamics, indiscriminate anger and a lot of noise. In this way, The Icarus Line's most obvious role models are the magnificent Jesus Lizard, though there's a touch of The Stooges about them, too.
Here they are, then, in cute matching black shirts and trousers, red ties and freaky smeared red eye make-up. Here's one guitarist, Alvin DeGuzman, chewing on his strings with his teeth and wondering why he keeps having technical problems. Here's another, Aaron North, standing on an amp and mashing his guitar neck into the ceiling. And Hola! Here's a faintly recognisable tune, 'Feed A Cat To Your Cobra', the Line's current single and as good a reason for a complete breakdown in moral values that this journalist can come up with today.
Their debut album, 'Mono', was selected by rock pariah Courtney Love as her favourite of 2001. But don't let that put you off. The Icarus Line are hilarious - though it's often hard to see what the joke is. They're righteously indignant - though, again, it's impossible to tell what about. They flit between choreography and chaos in a way only the best bands can manage. And when the drums are kicked over at the end, it seems more out of necessity than showmanship. Nothing else - nailbombs, severed limbs, curfews, the Musician's Union - could stop this obliteratingly fine and wild music, after all. Could it?
