Tera Melos @ The Kazimier, Liverpool, 3 Feb

11.30pm: we are exhausted. And it’s not just due to the lateness of the hour – Tera Melos’ synapse-tangling assault is both brutal and complex, pulverising all thoughts with serrated rhythms and gut-trembling volume. Nick Reinhart's guitar loops and distorted effects fracture our understanding of what’s going on even as drummer John Clardy pounds our eardrums into mulch. It’s only now, immediately after the nerve-fraying waves of noise have finally subsided, that we begin to make sense of what just happened.

See, underneath all those stop-start intricacies and swathes of virtuosic brilliance, this Sacramento trio have a secret: they really like pop songs. OK, there are no X Factor-friendly floorfillers here, but the angelic sighs of Bite owe much to My Bloody Valentine’s fog-headed melodies, while Tropic Lame furiously boots a Dinosaur Jr-esque riff towards a logically breezy conclusion: mosh-friendly noisepop with an addictive crunch. Slowly, it begins to dawn on us: this is no dense post-rock enigma! It’s a party! Albeit one that very occasionally sounds like 20 chainsaws being raked across metal railings.

Or it does, at least, until the second half, which dwells more on the band's earlier, mathier work, sending jaws hurtling towards floors and leaving us utterly defeated by the thrilling cacophony. “Tell us a story!” shouts one wag during a tuning break. “We don’t know any fucking stories,” Reinhart replies, before affecting a mock-bro-dude slouch and grinning. “Our music is our story, maaan!” The late finish means that the room is half-empty before the tale reaches a shuddering climax – but the survivors head home with ears ringing and hearts swollen. Tera Melos will break you, and you’ll love it. [Will Fitzpatrick]