Fat White Family - Electric Ballroom, London 18/09/14

Self-described as 'antagonistic', their subject matter veers from the distasteful to the offensive; the kind of music you'd listen to as a teenager just to scare your mum, with lyrics that would have you in detention if you dared scrawl them on your maths book. From yearns for girls of Lolita's age to a macabre massacre at a children's resort to rape - the playlist is a checklist of atrocities.

Their raw, filthy garage-punk hawks back to Camden's heydays. Tonight, Fat White Family have lured the ageing rockers who ruled the rock’n’roll roost back when the word ‘hipster’ was yet to be revived and gentrification was just a twinkle in Hoxton's eye.

From the rampant “Is It Raining in Your Mouth?” to the strangely meditative “Wild American Prairie”, the six piece writhe on stage like street dogs on heat, flinging flicks of sweat with every grimace. It’s a soundtrack for an X-rated David Lynch film. Not melodically rich, more offensively dense, and with distorted vocals as if Saoudi is miked up through a tin can; scratchy, screeching, sneering.

But it’s exhilarating stuff, and the moshpit engulfs most of the crowd. The room is electric; strobes dance across a throbbing hive of people, skit across anarchic arms and scintillating sprays of beer. We partied like it was 1999.

Amid the mayhem, their sound is almost a white noise; an energetic, tinnitus buzz, not disingenuine to the rough n ready quality of Champagne Holocaust. Saoudi likes "industrial noise" - which is lucky, as at times their output is a constant drone broken by chaotic shrieking.

It is widely said that they are making a comment on the "ridiculousness" of the music industry. Rather, it seems, they make a parody of themselves. At times it is farcical; a semi-naked, sweaty man snarling and whining. Throughout the set more members of the band, including Lias's brother, peel off their tops to reveal scrawny white chests (where did the Fat bit of their band name come from?)

Though as we’re subjected to “Touch the Leather”, we’re reminded why this gig is a sell-out. Under the morbid blues, smoulders a captivating talent, before the song disintegrates into a high pitched rasping that sees Saoudi a modern day Iggy Pop on the ass end of a fucking heavy weekend.

The night passed like a filthy pulsating blur, the crowd thrashed climatically and the final track was announced with a dismissive "there won't be an encore, this is the last one". The last thwack, then they walked off the stage.

With an album title that reads like a decadent celebration of history's most shameful genocide, their move is a brave one. But when too many bands are pretty boys with pretty voices wearing a Topman tee and a twee waistcoat, this is strikingly different. In a world where singers’ Photoshop their Instagram photos and overpay a PR to meticulously craft their 140 characters, this is a welcome smack in the face.

Tonight‘s gig was beguiling depravity, as if Fat White Family were demanded by Lucifer himself to play at his party. No-one was proud to have bought a ticket, but in that sordid little rave, there were no squealers. And there was something that felt legendary about the gig, like I might later brag to have been there.

• Photo by Burak Cingi. See the full gallery here.