The Whip @ Hoxton Bar & Grill

By now, regular readers will have noticed that we’ve racked up our fair share of frequent flyer miles for The Whip’s gigs. From Manchester to Mayrhofen, Cambridge to Cargo (alright, we’ve cheated a bit there) we’ve saddled up, hit the front row and braced ourselves for an electronic onslaught.

There’s a very good reason for this, though: we’ve genuinely never seen them have a bad day at the office. In this respect their Hoxton show was no different, with the band hitting their marks and thumping their way through a catalogue of monsters with complete ease.

Where it did differ, however, is that this was the first chance we’ve had to listen to the full suite of tracks from Wired Together performed live.

Settling the nerves with old favourite ‘Sister Siam’, the band quickly worked their way through the gears and into their new material. Early airings for the single-worthy ‘Secret Weapon’ and ‘Shake’ caught the crowd’s attention before the likes of ‘Keep or Delete’, ‘Riot’ and the beefy ‘Metal Law’ amped up the sweat to a level unseen outside of a Swedish sauna.

Of the remaining new tracks, ‘Intensity’ and ‘Movement’ are perhaps the greatest markers of the band’s growing confidence, with Bruce Carter abandoning his guitar and prowling the stage like a true frontman.

The Whip are a band you need to experience live to fully appreciate. Until you’ve stood amongst a sweaty, throbbing mass of dancing bodies, recoiling as the hefty electronic thump of tracks like ‘Divebomb rearrange your insides, you’ve only really got half the story.

See them live and, as with this gig, you’ll quickly realise why they’re one of the most exciting electronic live acts out there.