What with the transit of Venus and record breaking temperatures, well at least the hottest in London and Europe this year, Tuesday was shaping up to be a pretty good day. The question was could Rhesus, playing their last gig for a while due to the impending loss of their bass player, finish it off on a good note? At 11.00pm it was still sweltering in The Paradise Bar; partly due to the larger than normal crowd that had assembled, but mainly because of the ridiculous heat of the day.

Rhesus took to the stage at this time and prior to starting graced us with the opening refrain from 'The Only Living boy in New Cross'. However with the heat the way it was, I was doubtful there would be anyone living in New Cross by the end of the evening.

With fairy lights adorning the drums and their sound verging towards pop at times Rhesus' main aim is to give their audience a good time and, songs that they can dance to as well as listen to. They do this well staying true to their punk roots, but giving songs such as 'Means to an end', a pop injection in order to make them more listenable to the uninitiated.

Lead singer Jim has a good voice that is further strengthened by the harmonies that guitarist Wayne and bassist Muzz produce. Drummer Aaron holds everything together in spectacular style. In a strong twenty-five minute set the highlights included the aforementioned 'Means to an end'. 'Malfaetu' (which roughly translates as badly made), was sung by Wayne, who has just as good a voice as Jim. However the best track of the night was new single 'Art is dead', all their influences fell in place and we heard two and a half minutes of pop-punk perfection.

The night was not without its downsides. They kept going out of tune, but really cannot be blamed for this as it was due to the severe heat. At points it looked like they were going to collapse; at the end, when they had trashed the stage, Jim did. The heat was very draining on both them and the crowd.

It was a good night though. The circumstances could have been slightly more gig friendly, but you can't have everything all of the time. Rhesus won't be on the road while they look for a new bass player, until then check out the single.

Review by Foxy

www.rhesus.info