Ought @ Sound Control, Manchester, 18 November

Up-and-coming local psychedelics Kult Country are more introverted tonight than their kookily spelt moniker would suggest. With almost all their members hidden behind straggly long hair and Yousif Al Kharagouli’s vocals buried in the mix from the start of their anthemic bassline rumble Slowburn, they seem like slightly diffident Pixies types with their floating guitar lines washing down into a plughole of scuzzy feedback. The potential’s definitely there if they lift their heads a bit more.

Luckily Ought’s activism makes them the perfect band to encourage that, as they rev into the rollicking title track from their full-length debut, More Than Any Other Day, in a set mining the whole album. As a band formed in the political backdrop of Québec’s recent student protests, their spirit thrives on active engagement. Once singer Tim Beeler asks for the bar’s televisions to be switched off, they successfully mobilise the crowd with their anxious energy and earnest humour, Beeler yelping through tragicomic lines like “I am excited to go grocery shopping!” With their rhythms so taut and loose they seem liable to snap at any moment; miraculously, they don’t, grooving through the jerky rebellious pop of The Weather Song and Clarity!’s chaotic anti-capitalist invective.

Ought’s combination of discordant post-punk jitteriness with the democratic ethos of mid-90s emo proves particularly bracing on the night, topped off by the optimism of Habit, where the keys slow, the drums build, and the crowd expresses its togetherness by pogoing. Beeler’s openness in promoting their merch at the end is reminiscent of Amanda Palmer’s famous TEDTalk, The Art of Asking. If Ought stay as generous as this, who knows what they will get in return? [Chris Ogden]