In the upstairs room of a trendy Cardiff bar is not where you expect to find a grindcore gig, but once you weave your way through the beautiful people and venture through the secret door on the left you'll find a damn good little venue, which will most likely have the honour of hosting the first and probably last Insect Warfare gig in Wales.

The unusual nature of the night didn't end there, however. Firstly, it would appear that said venue usually hosts the kind of music nights that would have the average person in attendance tonight slitting their wrists or smashing the sound system up. 

So after about forty minutes of the most fucking irritating Hard House or some crap, there's a bit of life in the stage area. It turns out to be late additions to the bill Pus (unfortunately legendary death metallers Desecration had to pull out at the last minute due to swine flu, no less). And fuck me, if it wasn't worse than what we had suffered over the PA for the past forty minutes. The only way to describe Pus is totally unlistenable bollocks. Imagine someone picking a guitar up for the first time and thinking "I know, I think I'll make a SunnO)))) record."  Nothing against the doom/drone genre, but to make it even half-way palatable you need to know what you're doing. Pus (all two of them, well mainly one) don't. Turgid bollocks, simple as.

Anyway, after a little more Harsh Trance, the near angelic sound of Newport's Atomçk warming up gave me hope that the evening was soon going to improve, and surely enough we were soon off and blasting through a twenty minute set which showed Atomçk certainly wore their influences on their ....... T-shirts actually (Pig Destroyer/Agrophobic Nosebleed if you must know). 

Opting to play in the crowd as opposed to on-stage, the pace of their attack is fairly relentless with the trademark PD breakdowns providing a nice contrast to their grind attack. They have a real intensity about them as they fly through 'Black Metal Flag', 'One Thousand Barbarians', 'Hogan's Womb' and the inspired 'Meatball Wizard'. Worth looking out for in the future.

Finally, after more fucking (fill in you own shit artificial music genre here), Insect Warfare hit the stage and basically blow the fucking place to smithereens. They haven't achieved their legendary status without good reason and rip through the entire contents of their 'World Extermination'  album without barely drawing breath. Despite losing their regular vocalist Rahi prior to setting off on this tour, they carry on unhindered with a stand-in who more than ably fills in; though it must be said that the impromptu performance of one young lady was the stand out female vocal performance of the decade (Martin Einon, find that girl a band). Beau's grinding guitar and Dobber's relentless drumming ensure the pace and density of their attack never relents and the very decent crowd go suitably nuts throughout. Everything is then brought to a fitting finale with a closing salvo of Napalm Death's 'Scum' and 'The Kill' . Who knows if this is Insect Warfare's last blast in the UK, but if it is, it was a hell of a farewell.