VETERAN ’70s proto-punksters Suicide — Alan Vega and Martin Rev — can still kick back and agitate. 

That comes across loud and clear in the audio mayhem of this gig, part of the Barbican’s Station to Station month-long happening.

Their show may be a little less visceral than in the past but the misfits of the New York arts scene, who rose to prominence with their discordant electronica, remain daringly dissident raconteurs, as much hooked on disdain as ever they were.

Assisted throughout by Finlay Shakespeare’s hyper-responsive operation of stun-sound modulators stacked high onstage, they eschew a restrained retrospective of tracks from A Punk Mass — one of their earliest live performance pieces — for a raucous stream of age-defying attitude.

The imperious Rev (pictured) quietens things down a little for his solo composition Stigmata, a quasi-liturgical but anger-filled and snarling take on “classical” sensibilities and then later racks up the pressure drop for the psychotic synth swagger of the Suicide back catalogue and a wonderful agi-bebop homage to The Del Vikings’ Whispering Bells.

Both artists perform solo before joining forces for the Suicide retrospective and after Rev comes Vega, cane in hand, making a typically wry comment about not being able to walk well — “Just like in the old days,” he observes. 

Then, accompanied by Liz Lamere and Dante Vega, he roars through a brutal torrent of pounding electronics for It, a sequence of raging direct action tracks aimed at war, Christ and prayer.  The two join forces and the crowd go bananas as the Suicide track I Surrender hits home and Shakespeare and Rev’s heavy delivery of A Punk Mass is sublime, complete with orchestrated shockwaves

For Ghost Rider ex-Black Flag vocalist Henry Rollins supports and Primal Scream’s Bobbie Gillespie and Jenny Beth of the Savages provide the backing on Dream Baby Dream. Great.

Station to Station runs at the Barbican until July 27. Some events are free, details: barbican.org.uk

Review by Peter Lindley