THERE'S a storm gathering, an apocalyptic thing raging on the horizon. Black clouds, wind that will be rattling your bones, rain that will sting your eyes, a storm that will engulf you. That's what Uncle John And Whitelock are like: the sound of the end times, the last howls of those who refuse to succumb.

They're a Glasgow band who could have sprung from the murky depths of some southern delta swamp, savage in riff, biblical and damned in lyric; the skinny bluesmen who made a deal at St George's Cross.

As their guttural, insistent riffs, stabbing organ parts and tight, nervy rhythms assault you, singer Jacob Lovatt, like some magnetic pulpit star convinced the end is nigh, takes you through Moby Dick - on Whalin' - the empty misogyny of hip hop - 2 Fiddy, where "youth today living in a rape fantasy"- and Crowley's satanic visions.

The seething, rumbling Baghdadi burns like white phosphorus, its jagged guitars raining down fire, its lyrics a bleak dissection of Iraq's desolation, while Robert Palmer rewrites Addicted To Love from a blackmailing kidnapper's point of view. The storm's coming. It won't be pretty. But it'll sound great.

RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD: Baghdadi