Review | Henge take us on a cosmic ride from The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth

Henge are, in the best possible way, unhinged.

Led by ‘Zpor’, from the planet Agricular, this intergalactic quartet play what they call ‘cosmic dross’. In practice this means music that straddles electronica, funk, prog, psychedelia and the kitchen sink.

Drummer ‘Nom’ hails from Xylanthia, Venusian ‘Goo’ is on bass and things that go ‘squelch’, while sole human in the band, ‘Grok’, commands an impressive bank of synths.

And they have settled on Earth, essentially, to save us from ourselves and our nihilistic ways.

The gig is framed, thanks to an introductory voiceover in the style of flight attendant, as a trip on the band’s spaceship to the distant planet of Voltus B – cunningly enough their new album is indeed called Journey to Voltus B. And it is safe to say that the audience are well up for buying into the craziness.

Several of their songs do actually contain a serious message – like Get A Wriggle On, an entreaty to humanity to stop messing around and clean up the planet, or the self-explanatory In Praise of Water.

Others are just endearingly odd, like their ode to the wonder of micro-beasts tardigrades, erm Tardigrades, and a self-repairing robot – Self Repair Protocol.

Zpor is an engaging frontman. Resembling a long-lost relative of Arthur Brown, he’s either throwing some seriously wiggy dance shapes, or peeling off guitar solos at the stage front while waggling his tongue.

Final song of the night is their traditional set closer – Demilitarise, which has the audience chanting about destroying all of our weapons and going off to ‘colonise space’ instead.

And with that, our trip is over and we’re deposited safely back on Earth. Possibly a little more disoriented, but certainly happier.

In the words, but definitely not the spirit, of another, less friendly fictional alien race: Resistance is futile.