As the multinational, conglomerate record labels continue to tighten their grip on the music industry, grass roots live venues are becoming more and more important. Let’s face it, such venues are places where future stars cut their teeth, so The Craufurd Arms make sure they offer slots to promising local talent and case in point are Bedfordshire’s Skelta. They’re a combo who’ve achieved a lot in their short history, the roadwork they’ve put in has paid dividends, resulting in a tight band who flit effortlessly between tranquil passages and crushing moments. Their debut single, ‘Vaseline’, promised great things and on the strength of tonight’s performance, great things is what they’re going to achieve. Future mayhem beckons.

Some bands arrive in a blaze of publicity (and often disappear as quick as they arrive), whilst others are slow builders and seem destined for the long haul. Bristol’s Froglord definitely fall into the latter category, and the lukewarm reviews that their early albums garnered have evolved into fevered praise, and latest album Lower & Slower Vol.1 has pushed all the right buttons and attained universal acclaim. As such, a weight of expectation surrounds the band’s appearance tonight, a near sell-out crowd raising the level of anticipation exponentially. However, we must wait a little longer for the band to arrive, an intro tape (featuring Duelling Banjos) sets an eerie tone, as does the demonic green light that envelopes the stage. It means that when Froglord appear from the fog and launch into ‘Emergence Of The Toad’, it feels as if a spell has been cast over the venue. The band’s love of all things ecological and amphibian could make them seem a tad trivial or even a novelty act, yet when it comes to music they are all business with ‘Follow The Star’ and ‘Herman’ threatening to overload the venue’s circuitry. They turn Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ into a hulking monolith, tightening the screws for a truly skull crushing affair, and if any people are left standing, they’re finished off by closer ‘They Came From Outer Space’. Hail the Froglord!

Space Pistol have been the main support act on this run of dates with Froglord, but as this is a homecoming gig for this Milton Keynes crew they take the role of headliners tonight. Dressed in their trademark pink boiler suits, the three beings who comprise Space Pistol don’t seem out of place as bill toppers and if they are subject to any type of nerves, it’s the kind that sets paces racing and nerve ends on high alert. In fact, the band are powered forth by a kind of restless energy that finds their arrival being akin to a small improvised explosive device being detonated in the venue. As the band’s outlandish attire would suggest, they don’t take themselves too seriously (they don’t, they’re a whole bundle of fun), when it comes to music they’re bang on point as they set about clubbing the crowd into submission with some of the heaviest riffs ever invented. ‘Cryptd’ is the opening blast and one that sends shock waves throughout the crowd; there’s a quality to these songs that makes people loose their cool (in the nicest way) and it doesn’t take long for a pit to erupt, a chain reaction that reverberates from the front of the venue to the rear. However, that feeling of surrealism is never far from the surface (could anything be more Monty Python than a song titled ‘Exploding Whale’?), yet it’s a brevity which makes a neat foil for that heavy sound. There’s no encore tonight which means their set comes to a shuddering stop with ‘Tomb’, but one thing is for sure: we’re going to be hearing much more from Space Pistol.

Space Pistol Set List:

1. Cryptd
2. Exploding Whale
3. Devil & The Deep Sea
4. Death Collector
5. Space Pirate
6. Turbo Blood
7. Jaws
8. I Can’t Sleep
9. Ambulance
10. Tomb

Froglord Set List:

1. Emergence Of The Toad
2. Green Inferno
3. Follow The Star
4. Herman
5. Iron Man
6. The Mystic Toad
7. The Bog
8. They Came From Saturn