Joanna Gruesome @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 23 September

Definitely not a band for Daily Mail readers, The Spook School’s forthcoming opus Try To Be Hopeful is a treatise on the politics and practicalities of the gender binary (more specifically, they’re not fans), smeared with kaleidoscopic colour and a glittery approach to melody – ‘infectious’ doesn’t quite cover it. Despite drawing from the sappier end of American collegiate punk, there’s an appropriately furious energy to Burn Masculinity’s righteous cry.

Some gleefully goofy banter from drummer Niall McCamley about how to describe the band’s music (“homosexual hullabaloo” is one suggestion) helps to humanise the theorists behind so much progressive sociology, as though engaging tales of personal experience told through perkily perfect pop mightn’t be enough. Not just a great band, The Spook School might just be on the cusp of becoming pretty damn vital.

Joanna Gruesome have also been noted for their feminist take on furious noisepop, due in no small part to the outspoken nature of now-departed singer Alanna McArdle. There’s no gaping hole where she used to be, however; her replacements (ex-Trust Fund-er Roxy Brennan on the melodic bits, Kate Stonestreet of Pennycress on the shouty ones) help push the band towards a new level of energy and focus. Despite being slightly hampered by an overly-cautious sound engineer (three guitars should deafen, but spend too much of the set buried in the mix) they’re still a whipsmart bundle of fiery cacophony.

Sugarcrush is as brilliant as Jerome (Liar) is explosive, echoing the politicised fury of hardcore and the existential wooziness of shoegazing dreampop – caught between the two extremes, Joanna Gruesome simply blaze whole-heartedly through the middle, eviscerating everything on either side. When the time comes for a follow-up to this year’s brilliant Peanut Butter album, it’s going to be so fucking exciting to see what this new iteration of Jo-Gru can create.