And on the eighth day - having observed his work and been struck with a sudden overwhelming feeling of guilt and despair - God created EMO… and everywhere teenagers grew their fringes, put on eye-liner, became introspective and wept!

Yes… when we claimed here at tourdates to cover all types of live music we really weren’t lying. Ladies and gentlemen… I give you Anemo. They rock, yes. But by God are they emotional.

Anemo have all the ingredients. A power-house femme-fatal upfront with brazen rock-opera vocals backed by large men with loud guitars, it does exactly what it says on the tin... Rock! Emotional rock! And apparently they’ve got the loudest drummer in the world too.

Love it or loath it, this type of thing is about theatre, and Anemo have that in spades. There are fewer heaving bosoms or gothic candelabras than in the legendary videos of EMO gods, Evanescence (though Anemo do site the Christian rockers as an influence - along with Pearl Jam and Garbage), but there’s no more subtlety. And who would want it?

Anemo released their debut album Slowburn on New York label City Canyon Records in 2006 to rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now they’re back with a new tour and a new single, ‘Pray’ (out 15 October 2007), and this time they’re singing about “war, morality and sacrifice”. Deep!

Bizarrely, the new single is based on the experiences of BBC World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, who found himself ‘praying’ in the middle of a war zone in 2003. The band call it a tribute to all those who have died reporting the reality of war.

Lead singer, Hazelle Woodhurst, told londontourdates what inspired the song. “I remember hearing John Simpson talking about what happened on that day, and was struck by the fact that when he reported it, he focused on the very human side of the consequences of war, rather than get involved in a moral debate about why we were at war,” she told me.

“It got us thinking about the role of war reporters and how hard it must be, especially at times like that, to remain objective about what you’re doing, and how important it is for people like that to remind us of the realities of war.
“We’re all used to seeing sanitised television accounts of so-called precision bombing, but the reality of “shock and awe” is that that civilians, men, women and children die. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the extent of civilian fatalities in war.” And I thought that was what we had Michael Moore for.

But the band really aren’t about preaching their own moral messages to their audience - something Hazelle tells me is really not part of a musician’s job.

“Telling people what to believe in rock music would be no more relevant that being guided by a set of religious beliefs, or a political dogma,” she says. “What is important is to encourage people to think about what they believe for themselves, and to encourage people to challenge the views that others sometimes present as fact without justification.

“Bringing up this war in music has proven difficult. Just look at the problems that the Dixie Chicks had in the US, in the political climate that followed on from the war. And that’s supposedly in a country that guarantees the principle of free speech, but then at the same time passes the Patriot Act.

“I can also well understand how the families of troops feel that they are undervalued when they hear vociferous opposition to the war. But then you have to remember that many troops express doubt in private about the purpose of their own mission.”

It’s rare these days to hear a band get quite so political. No one bats an eye-lid when Zack De La Rocha raves on about social injustice or political corruption, but it seems somehow out of place for a band like Anemo.

If Muse suddenly wrote a song about the Iraq War it would probably be fine, but for some reason I just can’t imagine it. It would be like Gary Barlow singing about drug addiction and manic depression or Elliott Smith writing a song about something happy. It just doesn’t seem right.
That doesn’t mean to say the song doesn’t work though. Like all Anemo’s creations, it’s aimed exclusively at the goth-rock/EMO scene. Powerful guitar riffs, epic choruses and machine gun drums… everything you'd expect. And the new album’s apparently even heavier than the last.

Hazelle told me how the new sound has developed since the release of the 2006 album. “Well, at the time of Slowburn it was really just the three of us, so there’s quite a lot of electronica and loops and stuff on that album,” she said.

“We also experimented quite a lot, like using double bass on the title track, drawing on help from friends and people we just met along the way. The new album has evolved much more from working the songs with a bigger live act, so there’s more of a sense of a band and full rock sound.”
Anemo are adored by their fans and there’s no doubt the new single and album - out later this year - will be received well. Whatever you think about Anemo, there’s one thing for sure… they deliver. But then, I suppose, so does Pizza Hut.

www.tourdates.co.uk/anemo

Anemo play The Good Ship, Kilburn on 26 September 2007.