Good reason to get to a gig early: if you do, you might catch a cameo from the drummer out of Slayer…

Well, his nearest approximation, anyway: for Joss Moorkens out of the Dudley Corporation - he of the pneumatic-drill bass drum, the musical saw (of which more later) and the school-issue jumper - surely has more precision-violence with which to threaten the DC's angular Pavement-slabs of cerebro-pop than even the deathiest of metallers.

Together with Dudley Colley (guitar; wiggly voice; chords that haven't even been invented yet) and Pip Moore (bass; blank expression), they are a subtle, smart, bolshily unpredictable lot - and are so fab that we keep hoping they'll messily elbow their way back onstage, for the rest of the night.

Not that there's anything wrong with the sweet, earnest tune stylings of Chris Leonard, an amiable Scotsman with all the irresistible fancy pop shapes and charming glottals of Edwyn Collins circa Orange Juice.

And then, we get our wish, almost. For Moorkens is back on kit again, this time to gently conduct Joan of Arse through the traumas involved with being awake, being on the Whelan's stage, and being not remotely bladdered enough.

"Here's another song about drinking," moodily intones, er, Jeanne d'Arse (for it is he), as another booze-addled tune lopes off, squinting, to the early house.

"We don't even like the Velvet Underground," he posits rattily, after stoking up a staggering eight-minute desert-drone so lonely and malevolent (bass drum swelling gradually, seeping up like a tell-tale heartbeat through the floor) that it would make John Cale a bit edgy, and have Will Oldham ringing home.

And then, a woozy musical saw mini-aria near the end displays them for the sweeties they actually are. Tch. Bless.