A somewhat balmy evening saw the Australian expats out in force. They’ve been waiting a while – it was the Gurge’s first London appearance in five years, part of a short (one might say almost brusque) tour to promote their just-released sixth album Love And Paranoia.

While most seemed appeased by the end of the evening, things initially teetered on the farcical, the opening pair of songs from L&P being greeted with blank incomprehension, the band’s energetic attempts to induce a bit of audience sing-along action being foiled by the simple fact that no one knew the tunes.

Assuming MC duties for the evening (although I really wish that he’d kept quiet), bassist Ben Ely grimly dead-panned that “we’ve flown a long way and we’re going to make the most of it”, before the band launched into a medley of material from their well-loved second album Unit. ‘I Will Lick Your Asshole’ (It’s called WHAT? exclaimed my plus one) went down a treat, Quan Yeoman’s sleaze-ridden rap injecting the crowd with some degree of liveliness. ‘Modern Life’ was well-received as well, but nothing compared to the cheer that went up for ‘Polyester Girl’ – this was what everyone had come to hear after all, London’s antipodean twenty-somethings getting to relive the soundtrack to their teens.

Regurgitator may be releasing new material – the electro-pop duet ‘Romance Of The Damned’ was pretty damn good – but on this occasion at least they seem condemned to replay the past.