From Dublin all the way to Cambridge, and relocated from the Portland Arms in May due to a family bereavement and a demand for more space, I gaze out upon MASH’s four, familiar black walls. The lurid glow of the neon light cast an ill-lit orange haze on the stage.I’ve seen disastrous get-withs there, there, and right where I’m standing. And it’s soon to be the stage for one of the hottest up-and-coming sounds out of Ireland right now.

Interestingly, the crowd isn’t just bearded, ear-pierced, messy-mulletted men in one congealed mass: sure, they’re there, but interspersed between both young and old, male and female. Unfortunately for me however, the average height of the house still towers at just over six foot. I guess I’ll be catching glimpses of the band from behind this guy’s exquisitely conditioned ginger mullet.

I arrive just in time for the backend of NERVES, the support act. In the lyrics I catch, their shirtless lead singer almost reminds me of Talking Heads’ David Byrne. Most of the time though, his lyrics are spat out into the mic and radiate all the way to the bar. For their final track, the drums begin a silky-smooth swing number, out from which the tortured twang of the guitar constructs another thrillingly blood-curdling track. Were I wittier and retained more of my Biology A-Level, I’d attempt to make some joke about neurotransmitters.

“I’m already sensing their palpable anger, their righteous fury”

Gurriers emerge fashionably late to the sound of The Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’, bringing a sharp interruption to the ostentatious PDA going on in front of me. Their frontman, Dan Hoff, rather tastefully clad in a top that’s halfway between a knitted jumper and an NFL jersey, launches them into their first track: over the growing screech of the guitars, he thunders “They can’t erase the past”. I’m already sensing their palpable anger, their righteous fury. Gurriers formed out of lockdown, and some of that virulent pandemic rage lives within the veins of the band, nestled somewhere alongside their pulsating current of politics.

Before I know it, they’re beginning the next song. My nervous system hasn’t even been able to process. It’s like receiving an intravenous shot of pure, uncut energy. Hoff chooses to dedicate this next song: “This one goes out to all the people who’ve left Ireland,” he says. “F*ck ’em.”

He clings on to the mic planted at the front of the stage as if he might get swept away in the storm of his own lyrics, sporadically lurching between mellifluous, conversational words and the roar of unbounded emotion.

“The rhythm guitar swirls into motion: sound envelopes the entire venue”

The bassist, layered up with guyliner and his face half-turned up to the skies, trapses around the stage, looking at the crowd down his nose. The rhythm guitar swirls into motion: sound envelopes the entire venue. The lead guitarist, cradling his guitar in the crook of his elbow, takes both hands to alternate between palm muting his transcendent notes and bending his strings to breaking point. The drummer, obscured behind one of MASH’s inconveniently-erected pillars, thrums out a pulse.

That’s where Gurriers’ talent lies: the pulse. You and everyone around you are united in a moment, universally bewitched by the guitar sound that’s at once supernatural and murky, the bass and drums to which you surrender your circulation. With the entire crowd hypnotised, in one deft hand movement, Hoff turns them all against each other. The mosh comes alive.

“The mosh comes alive”

Even as the unindoctrinated, it’s easy to catch on with the lyrics that wash over the venue. The crowd chant back: “All my friends are dipping out” and “Nothing happens here”. The lyrics are down and out, venomous, bone-chilling. I don’t lament those lost to the flood of the band’s sound: I feel them regardless.

Hoff then proceeds to raise his hands and part the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. On his cue, the crowd becomes one, homogenous, sprawling mess. A beautiful kind of mess. But Hoff does something Moses stopped short of. He flings himself in, delivering the rest of the song from within the medley. Abruptly, he floats to the top – raised on hands that were fists thrown towards the stage only moments ago – continuing to scrawl out the lyrics as he searches the crowd.

In the chaos, two (what I can only assume as) male groupies scramble out from backstage. They seize their chance, squawking lyrics into the vacant centre-stage mic. Just as Hoff (who has lost his belt-fastened mic pack in the frenzy) is sharply regurgitated back onto the stage, they send themselves out on the sea, waylaid hands and Doc Martins jutting out from unnatural angles. They’re turned vertically upside down at one point. It’s culturally-sanctioned anarchy, and it’s addictive.

The lights come down low one more time, for the band to be cloaked in shamrock-green light. They bring the crowd down in tempo only to bring them right back up again, hearts in danger of giving out. I bounce like I’m just another spike on the ECG. I catch a glimpse of the drummer from around the pillar as he lays down the snapping snare-punctured beat of ‘Nausea’. It’s the bassist’s turn to descend into the crowd. Briefly, the swarm feather up extended, worshipping hands to his hunched figure: then he’s swallowed completely. I lose track of him. The neck of his bass materializes just before my face as he’s retrieved from the bedlam by the scruff of his collar by a MASH bouncer.

Gurriers deploy a heart-palpitating mixture of shrill, riff-riveting guitar, unrestrained drums, looming bass, and soul-screeching lyrics that could keep me transfixed for hours. They’re something I’ll remember – a cotagiously fierce band with all the rough, dangerous purity of uncut gems – if not by their sound, by the throbbing deafness I’ll bear for weeks in my left ear.