Tonight saw Emilie Autumn bringing her brand of 'violindustrial' music (industrial with a classical twist) back to Nottingham's Rock City; the second night of the European leg of a tour promoting her forthcoming album Fight Like A Girl (F.L.A.G.). Openly bipolar, Emilie has previously penned the partly-autobiographical The Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls which describes her experiences with the 'modern' world of psychiatry and with F.L.A.G. she is tapping the vein further, by telling the tale of a group of girls who find strength in numbers whilst being incarcerated in a Victorian asylum.

An Emilie Autumn show is very much that, a show; part concert, part cabaret, part burlesque, part musical. She is joined on stage by The Bloody Crumpets (currently comprised of Veronica Varlow, Captain Maggots and The Blessed Contessa) for a set consisting of song, dance, poetry and the infamous "Rat Game". Rather bravely, considering the album hasn't been released yet, over half of Saturday's set was made up of songs from the forthcoming album, which the majority of the audience would have been hearing for the first time - but this didn't dampen their enthusiasm in any way, despite a number of older favourites (Opheliac and Dead Is The New Alive spring to mind) being absent from the set list. There has been some criticism about the heavy use of backing tracks at an Emilie Autumn gig, but that may be missing the point. The albums are recorded with Emilie performing the musical and vocals duties by herself (think early Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails) and rather than try to capture this in a live environment, the emphasis is very much on the spectacular. In fact the new songs showcasing F.L.A.G. sound like they're part of a musical, new song Girls! Girls! Girls! especially sounding like it's escaped from a twisted Disney film.

Saturday's gig saw Rock City seemingly busier than her previous visit two years ago; her Plague Rats (as her fanatically loyal fans are called) certainly have been spreading the plague... Emilie is an artist that people tend to come to by word of mouth. Last time she visited Nottingham, it seemed the only reason why she was in the main room at Rock City was because her stage setting (giant clock, asylum bars, wheelchair, harpsichord) wouldn't fit on any other stage; this time the size of the audience justified the main room booking. The auditorium both on and off stage was awash with hats, corsets, bustles, sequins, ripped and striped stockings; the fans are as theatrical as the artist on stage. The night ended with a rousing sing-along of Thank God I'm Pretty before a bleeding Emilie Autumn headed off to hospital to get a head cut sustained from a Victorian medical implement during rehearsal properly seen to.

If you want to catch something a little bit more out of the ordinary, Emilie Autumn (and The Bloody Crumpets) will be back in the UK on the 13th and 14th April in London and Manchester respectively.

OLIVER MORRIS