MILK: PAWS / Lady North @ Electric Circus, 24 August

“This one’s by Britney Spears,” deadpans the mischievous Scott Bullen, before launching into a twisted, demonic rendition of Toxic, distortion yowling from his guitar as he himself screams a vein-poppingly unhinged version of the pop-star’s lyrics. Normally an instrumental trio, Lady North own the Electric Circus stage, frontman Bullen having obvious fun with his newfound microphone: “I don’t normally have a mic – this is a novelty!”

It’s the instrumentation that defines them, of course; we’ve already been levelled by opening track (and lead single from imminent debut LP) Bum Jiggy’s caustic, jagged wires, and no sooner has the dust settled after their Queen B reprise do they let slip more polyrhythmic dogs of war. Wailing, syncopated loops race against Paul Bannon’s cheat-code level drumming, while Jamie Steel slaps urgent basslines, locked in communicative eye-contact with his bandmates. It’s more like a playful joust than a communal set, the eye-watering drums in particular keeping the manic Bullen on his toes.

Milk’s 2014 Festival Closing Party culminates in headline act PAWS, a motley Glasgow trio that lives up to the name of their latest album, Youth Culture Forever, with their warmly adolescent thrash-punk stylings. The audience doubles in size as the ruffians take to the stage, and the nought-to-sixty frenzy which kicks off is contagious. There is plenty from sugary debut Cokefloat! on offer here, but standout moments include a charged An Honest Romance, and a sprawling, set-closing War Cry, both from the new record. Between each kinetic track, Philip Taylor and his pals shoot the shit quite happily, gushing about Eastenders (“Stay outta trouble Phil, fuck’s sake”) or the karaoke they’d been tanking in their dressing room. These boys have grown only in age and professionalism; axe or sticks in hand and they’re still boys, channelling that unabashed, electric high school vigour. [George Sully]