Toxic Nun @ The Miller, London

Rather like a Doctor Who episode from 1977, Toxic Nun's gig this weekend was resolutely old-skool, a little bit wobbly and charmingly simple - but it was also sprinkled with enough space dust to keep things interesting.

The band throw together some of the basic musical motifs of the late '70s (Clash-like riffs, a Numanoid-style voice) and perform them with a kind of nervousness which suggests caffiene overdoses and jittery knees. It's a punkish throwback then - yet there's also something jucily dark about the music. It's not gothic, but more of a cartoon darkness, like a 3D spider with blood dripping off its fangs.

Throughout the evening the guitar pedal is spewing out sci-fi noise and solar flares, but rather than coming off like a cheap trick, the music is explorative and (don't laugh at the back there) quite free sounding. Yet although the guitarist looks like Brian Eno, Toxic Nun aren't a boffin's band: they seem to be more about painting simple thrills in luminous colours.

Closing the night are Dead Sea Navigators, who take the cabaret pianos of '70s Bowie and give them a modern, widescreen twist. The band's name is kinda appropriate: their music feels hungry, depraved and lost in acidic waters. It's a dark and terrible vision for sure, but they sound bloody huge.