Black Tie, White Out, Full Tilt...

A loud percussive snare. The rumble of electronics. A black tie, mirrored sunglasses, and looking like you're on probation from a Tarantino movie.And a man in a leather beret. Hitting Things. Doesn't sound like it should work. But it does. Isn't it funny how THIS music works?

Armed only with a flag for a backdrop, and a tiny barrage of lights, Nitzer Ebb makes such a very little go a very long way. Minimal is the new maximal. No need for lasers or a stage shaped like a claw - instead there's harash and brutal, rhythmic and melodic noise, pulsing with bass and sparse percussion.

Centerstage is Doug McCarthy ; dressed like some wannabe zoot suit gangster from the past - or sleazy photocopier salesman, depending on which circles you hang out in. Its the razor thin black tie, the white shirt and the mirrored sunglasses that rarely leave his face that somehow don't ring true, that make this stage persona oddly unsettling and yet also identifiable.Behind him on the left lies the worlds smallest drum kit - one tom, one snare, one bass drum, one cymbal – and Jason Payne.

On the right is Bon Harris, dressed in black and with a leather beret, looking like an angry version of Adam and Joe - but in reality, an unsung industrial musical innovator, the man behind the machine. And in front of them lies a small but eager crowd.

Tomorrow Night, they will play to 20,000 people in one of the most prestigious venues in the world - the London o2 Arena. Tonight, they will play to an audience a tiny faction of that. Tomorrow though, they will play second fiddle to stadium goths Depeche Mode. Tonight, its the people who've been buying their records for the past 25 years.

With a set straddling the unexpected new comeback album - the recently released "Industrial Complex", only their second album in 19 years - and many oldies, its a welcome surprise. And why? Well, the new songs work. The new songs slot in just like they had always been there. Its like they meant to do another album, but it just took a bit longer to do than normal. A lot longer, actually. Chinese Democracy-esque lengths of time, come to think of it. And the new album, Its a lot like Chinese Democracy - many fans knew the band still existed, but found it hard to believe a new album was on the way, and when it finally arrives - believe me, it does deliver. Just like they'd cracked open the vault with an album chock full of classics they just had never released from back in the old day, "Industrial Complex" stands tall in such esteemed company. its rare that a reformation stands up the old days, but here it does by some considerable margin.

Doug is, always, wired. Pacing the stage back and forth like a runner in training on a treadmill, gesticulating wildly and goading the crowd. Here the front row , he can reach out and touch them. The old songs are greeted warmly, and the new songs suffer only by a lack of familiarity, interspersed throughout the show. It starts sluggish, though only due to people not knowing the new stuff. It warms up, and then comes "Godhead" - a song with a slow build from its ominous beginning to a thunderous end.

Sticking it in the middle of the set might not work that well - similarly, like the last show I saw of theirs (in 2006) it transforms the gig completely. It turns things around. The crowd now engages. Its the moment where everything clicks.

From now on, its stone cold electro classics. Even the new songs sound like them. For a band with a greatest hits album but who never hit the top forty in their life, its cult classics all the way. if you've ever spent a night in a darkened room, surrounded by strobe lights,loud hypnotic sounds and people wearing leather with blue hair , you've possibly heard them and never knew what the songs where until now. From cult to overground, you Join in the Chant. There's Fun To Be Had.

With a setlist that sounds like a greatest hits, its amazing they never were huge. But Too harsh to be commercial, too commercial to be cult, but too good to be ignored, Nitzer Ebb are a band that found an audience - one that deserves to be bigger. No wonder everyone from Marilyn Manson to the Smashing Pumpkins decided to hire them in to work with them. But in this world of fake reality Karoake TV shows, where singing along to someone else's songs masquerades as talent to a audience of millions, Nitzer Ebb won't be bothering the tabloid gossip pages. After all, its about the music. hard, electronic, uncompromising - but melodic, pulsing and propelled with bass ; flirting with the imagery of control, the sound of industry, and the beat that moves the feet and the hips, the heart and the mind.

Nitzer Ebb - Purveyors of the finest industrial clang since 1985.Enjoy.

Setlist:Intro / Promises / Let Your Body Learn / Shame / Hearts And Minds / Once You Say / Lightning Man / For Fun / Hit You Back / Blood Money / Pay Roll / Godhead/ Violent Playground / Warsaw Ghetto / Down On Your Knees / Murderous / Control I'm Here / Join In The Chant / Getting Closer/ Fun To Be Had / I Give To You

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