Despite this being my fifth time seeing Tiger Army this was my first time seeing them in my usual gig going location of London – on their last UK tour I caught them in Manchester and otherwise attended Octoberflame in 2015 and 2017 at The Observatory in Santa Ana as well as seeing them at Reading Festival in the dim and distant past.

For their latest jaunt to this side of the Atlantic though, off the back of the release of their Retrofuture album, the Southern California psychobillies were joined by a pair of European acts, Grave Pleasures from Finland and, slightly closer to home, The Nightmares from South Wales.

After an intro from Alfred Hitchcock’s Music To be Murdered By black clad four piece The Nightmares wasted no time making their point with a kind of goth powered indie that, in a way, married the sounds of The Smiths and HIM with some extra synths thrown in for good measure and some undeniably poppy moments too.

Despite having never heard them before they got me signing along a couple of times and had a captivating if unassuming presence with strong energy, despite only being on stage for around twenty minutes.

With the drive of garage, the insistence of punk and the sensibility of goth (and just enough rock ‘n’ roll too) Finnish five-piece Grave Pleasures were, in many ways, the perfect band to slot in between The Nightmares and the evening’s headliners.

Genuinely thunderous drumming combined with delay and reverb drenched guitars to provide the backdrop for frontman McNerney’s Dave Vanian meets Glenn Danzig like persona and presence.

While they probably deserved more of a reaction from the audience for their efforts, and the vocals got lost in the mix a little more than was ideal, Grave Pleasures were a great warm up for what was to come.

Between the bands all night the PA was playing a fine selection of old school rock ‘n’ roll with a sci-fi tinge perfectly suited to the Retrofuture aesthetic but, as always, as we prepared for Tiger Army the ante was upped slightly with more garage and psycho sounds before Hank Williams’ Angel Of Death welcomed the band to the stage.

Opening with Prelude: Tercio De Muerte, the instrumental that begins their latest record, Tiger Army set the scene well with the band, and frontman and guitarist Nick 13 in particular, revelling in just playing their instruments, in 13’s his classic Gretsch guitar — something that marked the set.

From there the first half of the set was a bit of a motley mix of the band’s varied sounds that seemed to wrong-foot the audience as much as delight, meaning it took a while for the energy to really get rolling and the band to find the right groove.

That said there were still a few highlights with Dark And Lonely Night getting a slight singalong going, Devil Girl and Cupid’s Victim providing succour for long time fans and Hechizo De Amor being a nice, rarely played live, surprise.

Beyond The Veil and Devil That You Don’t Know from the latest album, meanwhile, fit in perfectly alongside the rest and Afterworld was a personal favourite.

Then came FTW, a song from ‘before the first record’ as 13 described it and, given the day’s events in the city his usual introduction felt even more pertinent as it set the audience off properly for the first time.

From there on in the energy was far higher and the atmosphere was on a steady rise.

Eyes Of The Night followed FTW and showed the band can still write a song to incite a pit while Pain was the gothic, angsty singalong it should always be (and a particular personal highlight tonight) before they rounded off the main set with the always invigorating and purposefully positive (in its own way) Never Die.

A very short break followed before the band returned for a four song encore beginning with another instrumental, their take on The Chantays’ surf rocker Pipeline (as heard on the Dark Paradise EP).

Longtime favourite Ghostfire got the floor moving again before things slowed for ‘a country song’ in Outlaw Heart and then the evening was rounded off by an epic take on Annabel Lee, a track that goes back to the bands second record II: Power Of Moonlite.

Despite a few grumbles that, at ‘only an hour,’ the set was a bit short and this maybe being the least slick and most disjointed outing I’ve seen from the band (it was the final night of the tour which may explain it) for me Tiger Army still put in a rousing outing.

Across its hour and a few minutes the band showed how their sound has grown in diversity in recent years but also how they can still be the punk rock, psychobilly band they started out as too and whip up a crowd even when many didn’t seem like they wanted to get involved — is this the ‘London crowd’ thing I’ve heard mentioned but never really witnessed?

Nonetheless it was a great show with a pair of fine personal new discoveries supporting a band who do what they want to do without apparent compromise in the best of ways.