Caught Live: Mika Miko, Abe Vigoda, London

10pm on a Tuesday night is awfully late for the first of a three-band bill to be winding up their set but maybe that’s how they roll in the United States of Los Angeles, the place openers Anavan introduce as home to all three. That’s because tonight Mathew, the Tufnell Park Dome is the Downtown Los Angeles Smell. Ok so it’s far colder outside and the crowd are initially more retrained - something Abe Vigoda find strange, that’ll change later - yet the noise is unmistakably that of the increasingly not so L.A. underground.

While all three are quite distinctive, it’s when Anavan sound the least like their neighbours, when their electro-punk is more electro than punk that they get themselves in trouble. Straddling both successfully, like on ’You’re Taking Me Out’, works very well but they’re ultimately better off when singer Aaron Buckley drives the three-piece from behind his drum kit rather than fist pumping from the front of the stage. In the end they hit as much as they miss.

Abe Vigoda’s distinction, however, is their biggest weapon. When Reggie Guerrero’s Mexican-tinged guitar and singer Michael Vidal’s harsher six-string get into a combined groove, as they do so exquisitely on ‘Dead City/Waste Wilderness’ and ‘Skeleton’, it’s quite fantastic to watch. Yet, a little like the middle section of their recently-exposed to the UK full debut, they lag when they play things straight up. Not to say they shouldn’t go loud ’cause when things go a bit Mae Shi with a freak-out finale, it really is very cool.

Whilst away writing and recording a second LP, Mika Miko have become almost exclusively known by their association with the Smell this year. Pick your graduate and guaranteed you’ll find the line, ‘the same revered venue that produced x, y and Mika Miko.’ Such is the price of the forerunner. Tonight though, the four-fifths female driven Germs/Black Flack devotees wrestled that initiative back. Their frantic punk both frenzied the crowd and wore themselves out. A 45 minute set was, by their own admission, the longest they’ve probably ever played and it was perhaps counterproductive to ask a band reliant on two-minute bursts of energy to play so many. Still, it left no stone unturned. You name it - ‘Capricornations’, ‘The Dress’, ‘Take Hold’ - they played it and kicked a whole lot of ass in the process.