Science can be a vicious bitch. That's why people wear gloves.
There are innocent-looking clear liquids which can melt off your hand, and gases that can turn your face into pumpkin soup. There are rabbits in cages right now that are tarted up like a middle-aged Maidstone estate agent, and mutated rats that can hear the orbit of Jupiter as clearly as a squeaky gate.
Experimentation also has its human victims. Trial patients gibbering into pizza boxes while sucking chunks of pepperoni through recently-carved pot holes in their teeth. Damned souls with eyes poking out like bloody newborn heads in the final push of a pregnancy, several hours after right-thinking tube-monkeys have retired to bed.
As any good chemistry teacher will tell you, the secret to a reaction lies in controlling your measurements. And three beakers of Relentless energy drink is too much for any sane upright-walking mammal, no matter how much gin and gnashing rock you pour into the brew.
The natural home for something as unspeakably bubbly and vile as Relentless is in petrol stations as brightly-lit as an out-of-body experience, where drowsy truckers and dim teens can quench an urgent desire for something that tastes like the dregs of a Sodastream machine pumped through a cat's bladder. But even society's most vomit-inducing creations can achieve success in this world sometimes (see Michael Winner, Chris Martin and Akon for more details), and it just so happens that Relentless has sold enough filth to slap its name onto the front of The Garage near Highbury and Islington tube station.
The energy drink has taken a venue in need of a lick of paint and tricked out its walls with its spidery product logo, which makes this admittedly-shinier incarnation look like the alien hive on the planetoid LV-426. Except there's a slightly bigger bar area here, and the only dangerous side effect of an encounter with the Garage's face-huggers is a prosecution for statutory rape.
While a set in The Garage does occasionally feel like a disco in the Borg cube, it's a spacious spot for a bit of hair-flinging. Which brings us belatedly to the point of this dirge, a Surrey alt-metal troupe known as Hundred Reasons.
HUNDRED REASONS have been around for nearly ten years now. They haven't got the Cookie Monster roar of some of metal's most feared monsters, and they're not as reed-thin as the mall-popsters who write about high school flings and road trips. They're not pretentious, they're not trendy and they're not emo pin-ups. But they do have an ear for a tune, and they do deliver it with an energy that's light on pomposity.
The best way to kick off a Hundred Reasons set is with a track from their 2006 album Kill Your Own, an under-rated release which is as clinically sharp as a Hattori Hanzo sword. An odd but persistent instrument screech lurked in the back of the opener, but by the time the most recent single No Way Back loomed into view around song three, the Aldershot-spawned juggernaut was thundering over the cat's eyes in a simple but utterly compelling fashion.
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The crowd wasn't moshing, but it was certainly moving and bubbling. And it was then that the Red Stripe started to taste pedestrian, the nasal hair started to feel longer, and the old hips started to moan. There was only one way through this foam tide of youth, and that was to juice up and start jumping.
You can get a pretty good view of Hundred Reasons from the summit of a sugary high. The steadier songs from their 2004 album Shatterproof Is Not A Challenge may occasionally throw off the breakneck pace of the set, but largely it's an unashamedly bullish charge through the back catalogue, bolstered by the melodic holler of vocalist Colin Doran. On record, Hundred Reasons are a good rock band. Live, they're euphoric and entertaining floor-fillers that leave you tapping the floor like a child summoning an elevator.
The evil Orangina blend and the mutant Ribena were already plotting in my gut when the encore rolled round. A slug of nauseating gin-soaked bile with an alka-seltzer head on it was slithering down my gullet to join the cabal, cackling with a viper hiss as it went. My internal organs were humourlessly monitoring developments like armed Heathrow customs guards, but the rest of my body was hurling itself a few inches into the air, drawn to the bouncing rhythm of the band's glorious 2002 calling card If I Could. It's a throw-back-your-head-and-howl creation, perfect for those nights when you've been swallowed up in a seething ball of caffeine.
Hundred Reasons might not sit smugly in your collection next to Joy Division and Sonic Youth, but they're more than capable of carrying a crowd when it needs to scream at the ceiling. Even if that ceiling is tattoed like a half-witted 17-year-old weightlifter.
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