On stage presence? Check. Lead vocals, bass guitar and the kind of between-tunes chat that can make a bar feel like a living room? Check. MARCO MENDOZA, and in rhythmic head-nodding, an army of fanatical accountants from Leith? Also check.

Marco was sporting the sort of Hawaiian shirt that seemed to have been stolen from a tourist, then unbuttoned for effect to expose chest hair so thick it would frighten a small terrier, and with a gold medallion dangling like the pendulum of some randy grandfather clock, he stood there, not as a man; but as a sex god, who had clearly misplaced his temple and wound up opening up a shop in a bar instead.

The walls slanted inwards, the audience was height levelled, and Marco rushed in like lightning with a small brass band tied across his shoulders. The walls themselves converged to engulf the basslines which had previously helped to move a lift in Stockholm three levels above with a power cut. [Editor: I'm STILL confused] A potted fern obligingly paid compliment backstage.

The setlist was a cavalcade of silliness: "Viva La Rock" songs marched in with the kineticist energy of a brass band on an ostrich, "Live for Tomorrow" songs booming so hard that a dozen pigeons flew in the opposite direction in a squadron. Even "Casa Mendoza" patrons sparkled like a chandelier made of nothing but harmonicas.

He made his way through the crowd whilst still playing like a sage musical god, dispensing wisdom, benevolent sarcasm, and the occasional hint of bass play to any who would take it in. Children stop crying when he's around; adults have admitted their musical darkest, deepest secrets; even bartenders have poured with more syncopation when Marco's around.

He segues from rock effortlessly into Spanish beat as we get to appreciate the ghost of Carmen Miranda's fruit bowl on Congas, maracas blasted out on two Buckfast bottles thudded softly by a local pigeon, as the crowds are whisked away to Havana, but with kilts in abundance and fewer cigars.

A veteran of bands such as BLUE MURDER, JOURNEY, TED NUGENT, and an otherwise anonymous Montevideo circus, Marco Mendoza was leading a small orchestra of aghast bystanders and smoke detectors once more demonstrating history to be the flexible thing that it is.

In a moment that was completely transcendent, Marco bursts into what is the sole description of a bass solo so lovely that there are a few individuals here and there in the audience, who can be seen trying to pull phones out of pockets, not so that they might record the performance, for what recording device could possibly hold such greatness? But so they can call their mothers to say hello and tell them how much they love them, because with this kind of music floating in the air suddenly life does make sense.

And just to make it an even greater experience, Marco himself hangs around after the performance, hugging fans, shaking hands, and even possibly christening the odd baby in tequila. One of the tall tales is that he used to run a clinic where he taught three squirrels progressive rock blindfolded and while trying to solve a Rubik's cube. I departed Bannerman's with the resident house martin who retained the empty Buckfast bottles and was off to their next gig. [Editor: I honestly don't fully know what happened tonight...and I'm not about to start asking questions]

 La Belle Angele, 11th September, Edinburgh. The lights were extinguished like they'd been removed, and the room expelled a solitary, damp sigh. AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR took their place. By the time the first note was struck, I could feel it. Heat seeping down walls, curling round beams, something wet, nervous, held in restraint. The air thickened, iron and perspiration on the palate, a mouth ready to close over us all.

The guitars crashed, and the beast was born. Both parts of “Mother Belfast”  tore the darkness apart, flame crawling low, licking ankles, gnawing calves, licking thighs. The crowd writhed; hands slapping, voices screaming, blind fools, but it had accepted me. Its vacant attention slid into my marrow, its second heart thumping within my breast, battering me into submission with each beat.

With "A Slow Unfolding of Wings", it was flesh, obscene and inescapable. Smoke hips grinding, thighs around me, a mouth of fire against mine. The bass thonged through me, the drums pistoned harder, faster, until I was bent, bound, stripped. Guitars wound upward and the fire moaned, battering against me, whispering destruction as release.

“7 Billion People All Alive at Once” was detonation. It destroyed. It fucked down my throat, through my mouth, claws through lungs, a burning cock driven into my spine. My ribs burst open into bellows. My veins flared like wicks. Each drum-stroke a thrust, each chord a savage climax, deeper, harder, until my groin flared into fire. I wasn't possessed. I was blown out, replaced, remade into a furnace.

And then. It flashed. It streamed through my pores into the throng. Their applause soured to screams, screams to groans, groans to stillness as they themselves were pierced, consumed. Sparks kissed their hair, smoke tongued their lips, fire slammed into their guts. Arms convulsed, legs buckled, pelvises jerked in time with the drums as they themselves were ridden from the inside out. The entire club trembled, the hundreds of bodies convulsing, culminating, blazing at once, all moaning the band's name in worship.

The walls were not strong enough to keep it in. Then came Edinburgh town. Flame swept along streets as though ejaculated sperm, cleansing closes and wynds, lapping stone with tongues of ardour. Tenements groaned as they went up, windows shrieking apart, the town bending into the push of flame. Chimneys bellowed out smoke like lungs, pavements cracking like ribs. All buildings strained, all alleys creaked. The entire capital shuddered in a hell of fury and desire.

​I plunged into it, no longer stumbling human but stumbling altar, vessel, conduit. My lungs gagged embers, my groin throbbed sparks, my skin radiated raw. But I was not alone. The whole city had arrived. Every soul branded, every body thrashing, every street burning in consummation.

I didn't fear fire anymore. I no longer respected it. I was it. And it was everything. The city screamed, came, burned, and begged for more.

 As I arrive once again into the Scottish town of Edinburgh, I am struck by the thought that I am well-qualified to salute the flat-out heroic performance that FURY put on at Scotland's world-famous Bannerman's bar, on this the Seventh of September, Twenty Twenty Five.

With the introductory parts of "Interceptor", they had quickly demonstrated that this band had already established their single-handed dominance of metallic arts. Julian Jenkins' vocal delivery was euphonic in character. His laryngeal expertise extended well beyond the horizon of possibility to the point of pure virtuosity.

The rhythm section; raw, and elemental underpinning the percussively ecstatic Tom Fenn on drums and low-frequency-massaging Becky Baldwin, provided a sonic underpinning that was firm. They created soundwaves that travelled beyond the auditory canal of the ears and into the very being, of each person who was in the audience.

Tom Atkinson's six-string instrumental brilliance on songs such as "Prince of Darkness" and "Hell of a Night" was nothing short of mind-boggling. His fretboard acrobatics were the height of technical prowess that would be the green-eyed monster of even the most educated musicians.

The inclusion and addition of co-singer Nyah Ifill brought a high-octane, zestful energy that enhanced, and took the overall sound experience to stratospheric heights. Vocal acrobatics in "Embrace The Demons" created harmonies so unbelievably beautiful to the ear that this humble wordsmith was temporarily left speechless in discombobulation.

The stick-drenched, rhythm-saturated hiatus, was dazzlingly dissonant in the most enjoyable manner possible.
With the finale of "Down To Rock", the audience present had been given total entertainment by this masterpiece of artistic adroitness.

The allotted time was sadly, compacted for this masterfully adept, and no-doubt-about-it hyper-skilled troupe of thespians.
FURY turned out to be a first-rate tribute to British heavy metal in all its ultra-high-achieving glory. Words: Matt Denny.