Forward Russia! live @ Speakeasy, Belfast

Lashing himself mercilessly with the microphone lead, Forward Russia! frontman Tom careers around the stage like some maniacal self-flagellant. The song is ‘Nine’, the audience is frenzied, whipped into a dervish of excitement and clearly in thrall to the antics of the possessed singer. Suddenly, he stops and slowly begins to wind the mic cord around his neck, tighter and tighter, the resulting garotte turning his face an unsavoury puce. Forward Rusia are uncoordinated and messy certainly – but dull? Not a word you’ll find in their lexicon.
Dressed in matching garb of white t-shirts emblazoned with the band logo, and with songs titled simply by the order in which they were recorded, I feared the Forward Russia! live experience might be little more than an egalitarianism-spouting, art-rock contrivance. How wrong I was! Fractured dance beats and screeching, hacksaw guitar imbue the music with an incessant, captivating force. That a band who have released only a clutch of singles can elicit such a fervent response from an audience pays testament to the uninhibited bravado with which they play.
As the devastating diktat of ‘Twelve’ reaches its relentless, unseemly peak, the frontman scales the speaker stack, the ideal vantage point from which to discharge this twisted sermon on the mount. After 40 brief but hugely exhilarating minutes, it's all over. Slowly, the audience starts to file for the exits. And then, a flurry of movement on the stage. “Some of you have fucked off already, but we’ll play another one,” admonishes Tom. ‘Fourteen’ proves a fittingly dishevelled electro-rock finale, to a beautifully unkempt, thrilling display.