They may not have spectacular set-ups or break down much of the wall between audience and performer, but Brakes live are a highly entertaining, energetic experience. Watching Eamon Hamilton, veins in his neck bulging, give it his vocal all while Tom White inelegantly pirouettes around his side of the state bashing out bludgeon riffola at some volume, you get the impression that here is a band foremost keen on having as much fun and putting as much into their craft as we are and want them to. It's that almost personal immediacy that makes a live album not tell half the story. Rock Is Dodelijk - 'dodelijk' is Dutch for 'deadly', although Googling also reveals a French band who've done a La Blogotheque Take-Away Show called Roken is Dodelijk - is a curious cut and shut of a live document too, thirteen tracks from a hometown show in Brighton in August 2008 ('Hi How Are You' is introduced by Eamon as being "about watching The Tenderfoot at the Freebutt", the Tenderfoot being the jangly alt-country former employers of Brakes' bassist Marc Beatty) with seven tacked onto the end from a Cologne gig in May. 'Hey Hey' and 'What's In It For Me?' are represented twice and only three of the eighteen different songs represented are from this year's decent if not entirely successful third album Touchdown.It's not the most polished set of performances, not least in the Brighton version of 'Hey Hey' when Hamilton starts making up lyrics and then gets the crucial lyrics in the chorus wrong, but the Brakes charm is that their rough and readiness makes their fiery sets what they are. They're a tight band who portray the image that these often short, usually ramshackle songs could fall apart at any moment. The greatest hits-esque tracklisting plays up some often overlooked moments, most notably the Pixies quiet-loud mania of 'I Can't Stand To Stand Beside You', but rest assured the shoutalong favourites that are the reason why they're often overlooked come out well. The riff of 'Cease And Desist' sounds positively monstrous, and if the audience wasn't mixed so far back you'd be sure to hear them chant along with the mocking 'Heard About Your Band' ("...whatever, dude!") and rock's most head spinning anti-war song 'Porcupine Or Pineapple'. Good to have the storming penultimate set regular 'Huevos Rancheros' brought out of B-side purgatory, and twice at that, but the addition of the second set means traditional closer 'Comma Comma Comma Full Stop', which they've tightened up into a full four seconds in length, comes in at track 13. That can't be right.While Brakes work well enough on record, it's the wild eyed intensity, even in the ballads (no 'No Return', by the way? Or Camper Van Beethoven covers, come to think of it), that marks them out as such a live draw. While CD/mp3 is no substitute for the real thing, which even got a moshpit going at End Of The Road this year, those without any Brakes in their collection could just as comfortably start here. A super non-stop uber-rocking disco party, just like the man says.

Buy music on [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=32428131&uo=4" title="Brakes" text="iTunes"]