Therapy?

The life cycle of an indie band should be a subject for Leaving Cert biology. It is more interesting than any liver fluke, and certainly more predictable. Young band emerges from nowhere with a few NME covers. Makes Single of The Week. Gets 8/10 for the first album. Tour of UK student unions capped by a festival triumph. Second album best thing since sliced bread. Third takes longer to make. Isn't much good. Brighter, younger, cheaper things come along. Band members come and go. Money not what it was. Everyone from Orange Juice to Oasis does it, and Therapy? are a classic case now entering the "panned by smart arse Irish Times critic" phase.

Saturday night's gig showed them to be a shadow of their former selves. At their peak, they were a glorious outfit - punky and dangerous but with a fine sense of pop. Today's Therapy? is a flabbier, greasier, blacker affair. Their debt to Black Sabbath was never hidden, but now straining for a second wind they have retreated into heavy metal cliche: leather trousers, devil salutes, power chords and saluting the guitar as a phallic object. Classic songs like the awesome Teethgrinder suffer for it, and new ones like Suicide Pact - You First aren't much good.

Like an old boxer staggering around, the style and swagger is gone, and they try to win the day with crude haymakers. There's no doubting the enjoyment of either fans or band, and they look as decent blokes as ever, but now the question mark seems to hang over rather than follow Therapy?