"Sure, it's Friday night... what else would you be doing but enjoying a bit of metal?" A highly appropriate question from one of the stalwarts of the Belfast scene, the formidable Mr Andrew Bagwell - aka Baggy - at the end of the second showcase gig put together by the newly established local Savour Your Scene label (do you see what happened there?).

The label is a true labour of love by another prominent figure on the Norn Iron circuit, Stephen Currie - erstwhile drummer with tonight's headliners: to date, the new venture has released two full length albums and an EP, is serving as a shop front for many other bands, has set up a UK wide distribution deal... and has now moved into staging monthly gigs, featuring a combination of their own signatories and suitably complementary acts from across the island of Ireland.

Opening tonight's live proceedings are a band who automatically attracted Uber Rock's attention just by their name alone - Fuckhammer. Subtle that. No. As near as Belfast comes to a 'supergroup' - featuring various members of local acts War Iron, LessHelp - both in the not insubstantial form of the aforementioned Baggy - Two Tales Of Woe and Dyslucsic - they deliver an impressive set of sludgy but hard-hitting doom, filled with walls of feedback, crushing riffs and bass lines to shake the vertebrae from your spinal column, and unashamedly based around their forthcoming debut EP, 'Hammered To Fuck' (from which you can sample a track, 'Drone', here), due for release in "three or four weeks if we get our fingers out."

Dubliners Bricktop deliver no-nonsense hardcore straight from the sewers of Dublin, where they have been ensuring that they make the bodies hit the floor heavily for a while now, and have most recently switched their sights to doing the same north of the border, with this, their second Belfast gig in just over as many months. They've obviously made a few fans up here (either that or they bussed them up with them!), as the floor fills for the first time during a hard-hitting set dominated by tracks from their recently released self-titled debut EP (available for free download here).

A Gacys Threads show is always exciting, visceral, carrying with it a feeling of restrained violence - the sense of a wild animal about to be released in a roomful of pigeons just before lunchtime, of walking through an unmarked minefield just waiting for the bang. Tonight's performance is more on the restrained side than the explosive, but they nevertheless deliver another powerhouse of a set, hitting the stage with full force with the ever popular coupling of 'Black Heart' and 'Hope Bleeds Despair', from their current 'The Ignorance Of Purity' EP (reviewed here). About to head into the studio to record their debut full-lengther, the Gacys sound is certainly progressing apace, especially if the likes of 'The Dead Hours' (being debuted in the band's home town) are anything to go by: an extremely technical performance from all three musicians, with guitarist Blane switching effortlessly between rhythm and lead sections. As ever, the rhythm section of Currie and Ryan are tighter than tight, with the song structures, especially on the newer material, also giving them both free rein to display their technical expertise, while frontman Aaron prowling the stage like a panther on amphetamines and producing yet another in your face performance.

The only down side is that the gig ends the wrong side of midnight - but, sure, that leaves time for another couple of pints at the bar before the bouncers come looking to chuck everyone out into the cold night air.... As Baggy asked, sure what else would you rather be doing on a Friday night?