Autonym are a new band to me, and turn out to be genial north-easterners with a slightly off-key indie rock vibe. They're not bad, they play original songs but with a heavy Nirvana influence. It comes across in the dirty groove and the vocals, they definitely have that early 90s grunge feel about them. I do note that the drummer is really good though, and wonder if maybe in 20 years time he'll be a multi-millionaire front man too? In the meantime there's a song called ‘Fantasia’ but it sounds like he's singing mashed potato and indeed the singer touches on that - apparently most people hear it as sweet potato so I’m glad it’s not just me! It's OK, it's not really my thing (the 90s mostly passed me by musically and I now find I am discovering more and more from that era or influenced by it that I really missed out on).but they're playing well and seem like nice chaps. They do a doom-metal cover of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ that’s slow and heavy, almost gothic, which is nice in a “look we listen to Sabbath too” manner. We're not breaking any new ground here this afternoon but I've definitely seen worse and I certainly wouldn't avoid them in the future.

Twister start off with an atmospheric thunderstorm intro tape accompanied by little pictures of themselves on the TV screens that are built into their stage amps which I find absolutely fantastic The track stops, the band start, and they bounce onto the stage like a quartet of little Duracell bunnies. They are all energy, sound and vision, a veritable modern powerhouse. Things have changed recently in the Twister camp with original bass and guitar being replaced with new boys Tom (bass) and Mattie (guitar). As they have both only been in the band for 22 days I was wondering how things would go – it was all fine though and they fit the music and the general atmosphere perfectly. There's little noticeable difference to the sound, the only thing that kind of stood out is that although giving it a go they both seemed a little hesitant on the backing vocals. The slack was taken up by drummer and all-round good egg Jack, but I have a message for Tom and Mattie – you did OK, you can do this!

What Twister is all about really is frontman Stevie though. This is his vision, and he’s a ball of energy on stage, not just performing but also directing the whole experience. This is another band with power and melody in spades – they remind me a lot of Bon Jovi in places. You know, early Bon Jovi when they were good? There’s also a hint of pop-punk going on, with shades of Blink 182. I’m about to call this modern and then I realise that Blink 182 have been around for about 30 years now – sheesh. They own both the stage and the room, it's heartbeat music, it's vibrating, and the crowd although not massive responds with enthusiasm. Stevie has a decent voice and I've seen it improve hugely over the last few years. He also seems to have developed a thing of standing on one leg though, and I am concerned that this may become the new fashion in rock because not everyone will have the balance for it! 

The songs have a commercial, radio-friendly sound without losing too much of their rockiness and I really enjoy it. There are decent woah-oh choruses and the whole thing romps along nicely. They are heading off to Europe very shortly to tour with The Quireboys so that’s a bit of a jump in at the deep end for Tom and Mattie, but they handled today with such aplomb that I’m sure it will be fine. One of the songs contains their band motto “we're not done, we're just begun” and I like that, they should put it on a T-shirt. Oh, they have! They finish with ‘64 White Lies’ which is another balls-out rocker but with an underlying funky guitar sound that’s straight out of the Nile Rogers playbook. What a splendid way to spend a Sunday afternoon, watching these lads mix and match their genres.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!

Twister, Autonym