Slaves remain blunt and to the point at Reading 2016

"I love you more when you're angry with me," bellows Isaac Holman. "You're so boring when you're nice." It'd be easy to spend time skirting round the obvious elephant in Slaves' room, but one thing's for sure, they're not. Royal Tunbridge Wells' foremost proto punk provocateurs are hitting Reading like an unrelenting whirlwind, and it's going down a storm. A couple of years ago Isaac and Laurie were playing tiny stages. Now they're on the biggest of the lot. 'Sockets' rattles the bones, 'Do Something' stomps with heavy soled shoes. By any sensible logic a two piece with one album of mainstream attention to draw from should struggle, but these two aren't even considering the possibility. A giant rock launching itself into a series of sizeable puddles, they're here to make a splash. For a band who, on the surface, might seem almost two dimensional, there's a special kind of depth to Slaves too. As polarised and brash as their music, subtlety would miss the point. The blunt instrument is often the most effective, and with new tracks like 'Rich Man' ("I'm not your bitch, man"), their weapon of choice is a roughly lobbed half brick. "Fuck Brexit," shouts Laurie. He's got a point.