This Will Destroy You, The Haunt, Brighton, September 4

The Haunt, Pool Valley, Brighton, September 4

This Will Destroy You certainly don’t hold anything back; it’s almost as if their music is intent on living up to its somewhat doom-laden – and self-admittedly tongue-in-cheek – moniker.

Playing before a backdrop of distorted black and white film, the Texan quartet – surrounded by gadgets, toys and the occasional e-bow – belted out a set of epic, primal and devastatingly hypnotic rock that left the slowly head-bobbing crowd rapt.

Watching seated guitarist Jeremy Galindo, it was hard not to be reminded of a classical guitarist – albeit one who swigged on a beer whilst teetering on a drum stool as he intently focussed on the music he created – whose intricate melodies weaved their way between the thundering, then melancholic, riffs of his bandmates.

Both old songs and new were given their due; fresh track Invitation saw the band’s ranks swollen by two members of support act Lymbyc Systym, leading to a jaw-dropping piece of synchronised drumming.   

Penultimate song Threads - a genuinely beautiful song live – stunningly encapsulated all that This Will Destroy You embody sonically as a band; a sense of melody and sensibility one moment, a lumbering behemoth of guitar riffs and melancholic angst the next. It’s this straddling of delicate fret work and sudden raging intensity that make the band so enthralling live.