As anti-mainstream-society as Rage Against The Machine and mainstays of the burgeoning sub-culture of Los Angelenos, heavily influenced by long-forgotten third generation British punks such as Discharge and Charge GBH, Amen fly their tattered punk flag with pride.
They came, they were relentlessly angry for an hour and then they left. Yet where there is unfettered energy, there is often hope.
Burly singer Casey Chaos threw himself into the audience, swore like a trooper about to be court-martialled and sang most of Under The Robe perched on top of a speaker stack, tottering precariously 20 feet above the audience.
Indeed, so dervish-like was his dancing during the thrash section of Hello (One Chord Lovers) that the poor lamb made himself dizzy and had to sit down to bellow the verses.
Meanwhile, topless guitarist Matt Montgomery eschewed playing for the most part, preferring instead to flash cheery devil signs at the audience. In his own, supremely gormless way, he is a star.
Along the way, the quintet stampeded through The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog and the dangerously tempting Please Kill Me was rendered as a nihilistic singalong.
They took requests, they burned with sincerity and, when the mood took him, Chaos sang like Jello Biafra, long-lost former leader of The Dead Kennedys.
Wisely, they saved the best until the solitary encore. America's Bleeding is their finest moment, a little poppunk classic that might just give them the breakthrough hit they desperately need after three albums. Stranger things have happened ...
