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Still finding their collective feet, RavenEye are a power trio who sound a little like The Groundhogs.

Led by guitarist Oli Brown, they’ve already got beefy chops, cracking tunes and have everyone dosed up ready for the main event.

As Elin Larsson points out, this is the fifth time Blues Pills have played in London in a comparatively short time. But while you’d be desperate for some bands to take a very long break before even thinking of a return, they’ve got increasingly better. And this performance is in another dimension when compared to the slightly tentative first steps 16 months ago.

There’s an ease and confidence which is electrifying. Opening with the striding High Class Woman, the band step through Ain’t No Change and Bliss, holding everyone’s attention as this train gains increasing momentum.

What impresses is the languid, deceptively lazy style the band have slipped into. This is reminiscent of Free’s philosophy, even if musically they’ve more in common with Humble Pie. The point is Blues Pills are rapidly becoming an essential live experience. Their version of Tony Joe White’s Elements And Things is coruscating, with Dorian Sorriaux cutting an imaginative lead guitar moment. And Devil Man is a guaranteed show stopper.

Finishing with the burnished riff of Little Sun, the Pills are a tonic for any night.

BACK TO LIVES

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.