Last night I went to see The Warlocks at the Little Civic in Wolverhampton. Witch was nice. But what clever booker put Solihull godbotherers Flik on as support to this most arcane of bands? After a half hour or so of earnest grunge/nu metal fare, during which only the anthemic 'No Way Don't Say' really stood out, the lead singer decided he want to talk about Jesus. Now I'm not too sure how I feel about a young pup who hasn't worked out yet how to comb the hair out of his eyes telling me how I should run my life, but you've got to admire the lad's cojones for lecturing this particularly ugly, hairy, heathen crowd about the perils of drinking and smoking.

['Flik prick!' retorted a crack-smoking american woman with straggly blonde hair behind me. And there was me thinking Courtney Love was safely back in the States...]

It was always going to be entertaining to see how they were gonna fit all seven of The Warlocks on the cramped Little Civic stage and indeed I only counted six during the performance but right at the end a little fella said his thanks that I hadn't seen all show, so dunno where he was hiding. The satanic septet also include in their number a funky female Bez in the line-up. The bit where she rested one hand on her hip while shaking a couple of maracas in her other particularly did it for me.

The way great swathes of guitars built to create a hypnotic atmosphere reminded me very much of Godspeed! Ye Black Emperor and also of any number of shoegazing bands from the early 90s but much louder, much more tuneful and massively more entertaining to watch. This is The Warlocks' first spell in the UK and I urge you to catch 'em if you can, or if that proves too tricky treat yourself to a listen of their upcoming album Phoenix due out next month. Spiritualized may be the band that seems to trip off everyone's tongue while describing The Warlocks but I'm no great Jason Pierce fan and I loved 'em: they're my favourite new band of 2003 already.