Under the needle

As an incessant rain saturated the darkened streets outside the modest side entrance to one of London’s most unlikely premier alternative music venues, black hooded metal-heads gathered like a murder of crows. A gloomy air pervaded as ticket holders for that night’s show deliberated whether to clamour for refunds following the disappointing news that German punk-driven metal duo Mantar had pulled out due to ill health, or to give the other bands a whirl. The organisers and re