This was my first opportunity to see 3ulogy live for quite some time. Before them, though, it was a couple of support acts, who had been added to the bill at short notice after the dropping out of both Nightmoves and Karmanaut, neither of which I was too keen on anyway.

I only caught the end of opening act John Merrick’s Remains, and was thoroughly bemused by what I saw and heard. Some odd, odd onstage outfits, and some seriously lo-fi electronics. Yeah, by all means include humour, but don’t forget to include some musical proficiency and perhaps even the odd tune, huh?

Cybercide were somewhat changed to my previous live encounter with them, with John having left the band and leaving them as a two-piece, with Rob on keyboards and Eddie doing the vocals. Eddie is perfectly good as a frontman, although doesn’t have as forceful a voice as John did. Musically they are still the same – somewhat derivative EBM-electro-synthpop that frankly, you will have heard before. While the new track aired did offer something a little different, it wasn’t anything to set the world on fire. This band really need to create an identity of their own – riding on the coattails of other bands’ styles will only get themselves so far.

And so onto 3ulogy. They always seem to thrive in the live environment when faced with adversity of some kind, and last night they were clearly feeding off their annoyance with another low gig turnout in Sheffield. So what better way to start the set than with what is, in my opinion, still the best track they have created – Forget. Now primed with a new intro and even more power (the blastbeats don’t limit like they used to in the chorus), coupled with Nick’s raging delivery, the sound simply bulldozes the room. Deception suffered slightly after that, but it is still a strong track – and interestingly these two were the only “old” tracks heard. Of the new tracks aired the following are worthy of note here: What You Don’t Want To Hear was done as a somewhat intimidating dual vocal-attack between Nick and John (and is streets ahead of the still-strong recorded version), You Are The Enemy was a rare moment of respite from the aural abuse (and worked very well, too), while I’m still not sold on Pathetic, which closed the set. It is probably their most generic track, which is a shame – 3ulogy are generally doing something rather unique, so it is a little frustrating to see them sit back on a track that could perhaps be so much more.

Still, the furious finish to the track and the hurling of the microphone to the stage at the end provided a startling finish to a strong performance. The band’s different side-projects have clearly made a difference to their writing and recording, and every release shows a massive step forward. Now all we need is the gig-goers in the Industrial ‘scene’ to catch up…