[a]Gallon Drunk[/a] might be here to play us their new album – the menacing soundtrack to indie director Nicholas Triandafyllidis‘ black-comedy flick [I]Black Milk[/I] – but theirs is not the baton-wielding way of the composer. Ever see [a]Ennio Morricone[/a] flailing out into the audience as exquisitely-shirted Gallon frontman James Johnston does tonight – Y-shaped vein bulging worryingly from his forehead, and swinging a guitar like it’s a weapon of execution, mere inches from [I]NME[/I]’s head?
The difference is, Gallon Drunk live their whole life in a movie: four hip young gunslingers, the last gang from Camden Town. But if there’s an initial incongruity to Gallon‘s strident performance, it’s because we’ve got a feeling that their corpse has been strung up in this town before. Eight long years since they first courted frenzied journalistic hyperbole, preaching their Memphis-from-the-gutter gospel to all comers, and frankly, their game has changed not a jot. But Gallon Drunk are suspended outside of time, forever going out in a blaze of glory.
‘Push The Boat Out’ comes on like the second encore on the closing night of the Last Chance Saloon, as Johnston hurls himself, again, at the crowd, frantically blasting on a harmonica. His mic lead has fallen out. But he doesn’t care, and for 20 heart-in-mouth seconds, the band goes quiet, and Johnston plays to the whole venue on lung power alone.
It’s rock’n’roll [I]in excelsis[/I]. [a]Gallon Drunk[/a] score, and tonight they score like no other.