Fat White Family, Brixton Academy, London, review: 'One of the best live bands in the country'

The idea that south London psych-rock rabble Fat White Family would ever headline a venue the size of Brixton Academy always seemed somewhat fanciful.

Not only have drug issues and inter-band tensions between singer Lias Saoudi and principal songwriter and in-out guitarist Saul Adamczewski left the six-piece seemingly forever on the brink of collapse, the band’s general disposition – dirty, dangerous, confrontational – always appeared willfully provocative, designed to actively discourage people from listening. “We’ve really tried to go to the extremes of what’s tasteful” Adamczewski said about this year’s second album, the dense, reverb-heavy Songs for Our Mothers, and when the themes addressed include Harold Shipman, Joseph Goebbels and the violent relationship between Ike and Tina Turner, you can safely conclude it was mission accomplished.

Yet here they are, hometown heroes doing the (dis)honourable thing just four years after forming in a pub down the road. If past shows, famed for their naked outrageousness, have run the full gamut –equally as likely to be scandalously feral as shambolically frustrating – then tonight proves a reminder of why, when it falls into place, Fat White Family are one of the best live bands in the country.

Before a note has been heard Saoudi prowls the stage in an ill-fitting suit, swigging from a bottle of wine like a wedding gatecrasher looking for trouble, but once opener “Tinfoil Deathstar” chugs into action, eventually scorching to a high like its subject matter (heroin), he is topless and running amok: with an uninhibited display of chicken dancing, hunchbacked lurching and defiant posturing, not to mention some wild, blistering vocals, he is a magnetic, deranged presence.

The music behind him, aided by three backing singers and a saxophone, is thrillingly abrasive. New track “Breaking into Aldi” is wall of scuzzy noise; the grubby, melodic “Is it Raining in Your Mouth?” eventually collapses in a wail of feedback; and the ominous and frankly disgusting come-on of the Cramps-like “Touch The Leather” explodes into a cathartic chorus.

Furthermore, with Adamczewski back in the fold (for tonight at least) there is a band-of-brothers togetherness on stage that, flying in the face of their reputation, is rather touching. The love transmits from the crowd too: “I’m so easily satisfied” they sing as the Krautrockabilly of “Satisfied” reaches an unhinged crescendo, turning a somewhat seedy omission into a collective moment. Like all before it, it was an electrifying victory of chaos over reason.