Goat Girl review, The Garage, London: Painting a brutish, sleazy portrait of this divided isle

The band don’t care much for restraint and rattle through their set with minimum fuss and minimum chat

Goat Girl at the Garage (Rex)

“Build a bonfire, put the Tories on the top/Put the DUP in the middle and we’ll burn the fucking lot,” screams Goat Girl frontwoman Lottie “Clottie” Cream on “Burn the Stake”, tonight’s opener.

It’s not subtle but then this post-punk, post-Brexit all-female quartet don’t much care for restraint. Rowdiness, rage (on “Scum” Clottie posits “how can an entire nation be so fucking thick”) and humour (witness their video for “The Man”, which gently mocks Beatlemania in their moptop heyday) are more these south Londoners’ agenda.

They’ve been compared to The Libertines, but Barat and Doherty espoused a romantic English idyll, whereas Goat Girl paint a more brutish, skewed, sleazy portrait of this divided isle.

Crucially, however, these four early twentysomethings with playful names – Clottie, guitarist LED, bassist Naima Jelly and drummer Rosy Bones – are a slick live proposition, like a blend of the Cramps, Luscious Jackson and the Pixies with a smattering of rockabilly and even Led Zeppelin throw in.

The foursome rattle through their hour-long set with minimum fuss, minimal chat and (disappointingly) no encore. Highlights are the unsettling “Cracker Drool”, “Country Sleaze”, on which Clottie claims “I’m disgusting/I’m a shame to this so-called human race”, “The Man”, a song that prompts moshing and three audience members to climb on to others’ shoulders, and the goth-flavoured “Scum”, all from their eponymous, 19-song debut record.

Will these erudite performers prove a jolly flash in the pan or can they endure? Hopefully, the latter.