(Retox image (right) from their website)

If delicate or melodic are words that determine whether you should attend a gig or not, then this was definitely not the night for you. Grind, crust, hardcore, powerviolence, call it what you will, tonight was an exercise in relentless hostility. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it...

History Of The Hawk supplied twenty minutes of fury to get the night started. Fronted by a vocalist intent on spending more time off stage – although surely a wireless mic would have been a good idea? - their stint could be summed up, succinctly, as raw. Can't argue the fact that they possessed the pre-requisite levels of attitude and aggression, or indeed that they were blisteringly fast and heavy, but there was a sloppiness to it all that made their set seem like a glorified rehearsal. Pity really because they had a great sound at their disposal, they were tight enough as a band, and their vocalist could clearly scream his lungs out with the best of them. That said the smattering of indifferent applause that greeted the end of individual songs, and their set as a whole, spoke volumes...

Rock music in general has a reputation for being chauvinistic to the point of misogynism. All female punk band? In this day and age? Are you mad? Perhaps I need my sanity checked because Pettybone powered through their twenty minutes or so of savagery clinically and with a single-mindedness that would put many of their male counterparts to shame. Fusing the chaotic elements of punk with elements of thrash and black metal – mainly down to the intensity and velocity of the drumming and the extremity of the vocals – into such a coherent and brutalising force was a joy to behold. A collapsing floor tom did little to put them off their stride, and aside from the vocals being a little subdued in the overall mix it was nigh on impossible to find fault. By all reports current album From Desperate Times Come Radical Minds is suitably venomous to keep you going until they next tour. Can't come soon enough!

And you can read MR's review of Pettybone's album here.

Setlist: A Bastard On Father’s Day, 30 Cents Shy Of A Quarter, A Captive Audience, I Rub The Wrong Way, Ready To Spit, Stick A Fork In It, The World Is Ending And It’s About Time, Ten Pounds Of Shit In A Five Pound Bag, New Song (untitled), Rusty's Sheriff Badge, A Funeral On Christmas, We Are Not Compatible, We Hang By Our Eyelids, Boredom Is Counter Revolutionary, Piss Elegant

• Click here to read Jason's review of Retox's gig with Today Is the Day and Meatfeast at the Academy 3, Birmingham on 5th April 2011