LIVE REVIEW: HELLBASTARD & PANZERBASTARD @ LONDON ELECTROWERKZ

The Electrowerkz smells pretty much as you'd expect given it's most often inhabited by fat goths emptying pools of sweat out of their PVC top hats. Maybe the odour of virginity and red wine is anathema to crusties, who doubtless get all kinds of sex from addled crustettes with daddy issues, and therefore reek of semen and white cider.

Yeah, that's definitely what it is, because it seems painfully empty for BARSTAHN, MAZZARCHEWZETTS Third Reich fetishists Panzerbastard who have the atrocious sound for their opening song. Frustratingly it's their signature tune 'Bastards Die Hard' – an unapologetic beer-swilling, DGAF anthem for thugs everywhere. Luckily, whatever dispute their Celtic Motörcharge thrash punk was having with the PA reaches an amicable conclusion and an equilibrium is reached. It sounds suitably fierce, 'Hellgate' especially, and there's a lovely, grateful homily to English punk rock and heavy metal, the sort that bands feel compelled to make on their first trip to London – sort of the rock 'n' roll equivalent of Jerusalem Syndrome, where visitors to the Holy Land become convinced they're angels/prophets/etc. Also, vocalist/bassist PanzerKeith (as he definitely isn't called), looks like Burton C Bell would if all the chipmunk DNA and triple decker cheeseburgers were removed and replaced by post-apocalyptic Viking biker.

Not sure who's in North-East 'rippercrust' hellions Hellbastard anymore, and the rest of Hellbastard don't seem entirely sure what band they're in either – they're just concentrating on delivering pose-striking thrash metal while the affable Scruff takes care of all the things that make Hellbastard who they are. And that works, he's certainly got more than enough punk rock to go around. Over-earnest condemnations of the New World Order are delivered with the sort of heartbreaking sincerity that excuses anything, even the fact that his plaits are coming undone. The crowd fills out a bit, with awkward looking punks jostling with thrashers and grumpy skinheads, neatly summing up the strange twilight world in which Hellbastard dwell – too much conscience for the knuckle-dragging metalheads, too much self-absorbed shred for the orthodox punks, and too much peace and love for the militant anarchopunk dustbin divers.

Those cunts are totally missing out, because Hellbastard take genre orthodoxy and juice it like a vitamin rich raw veg smoothy - harsh and earthy to the taste, but doing you the world of good.