Nearly two years after falling out with their old record company Hundred Reasons are back on tour with a new record deal, a new album and a new keyboard player who "smells of wee"*.

The Scala is a perfect venue to see the 'Reasons, just small enough to help create the sweaty, heaving atmosphere they seem to feed off. They open with the powerful ‘Broken Hands’ from the new album Kill Your Own and without missing a beat are straight into their extraordinary, manic live performance. As ever they burst on to the stage like wild men and whoop it up all over the place like a sixth-form garage band who knows this might be their only time on stage.

The music is far from amateurish though, and they play with a beguilingly ragged precision, keeping the songs tight but never losing the raw essence that seems to define their sound. Songs from the new album got a good outing, including the next single ‘The Perfect Gift', the thrash-heavy ‘Live Fast Die Ugly’ and, incorporating an unexpected and haunting retro 80s synth part, the album title track Kill Your Own.

The crowd's most fevered responses are reserved for the classics though, with the beautiful, beautiful ‘Falter’ uniting the packed room as one angst-ridden, raucous voice and the anthemic ‘If I Could’ shaking the foundations of the new Channel Tunnel link passing below the Pentonville Road. The band recently claimed a desire to avoid playing "that Emo shit" and whilst their music will never lose the label of thoughtul, emotional rock, there is a growing depth and power about their sound. They have written some truly great songs, and their live performance remains one of the most energetic and exciting around. Never mind who's going to write the World Cup song (Erm, it’s Embrace actually – Ed), Hundred Reasons should be put in charge of writing a new national anthem, then we'd have a country to be proud of.
(5/5)
 
*not my words, this is how front man Colin Doran introduced him at the gig!

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