It’s been a busy year for Bath’s indie blues rockers The Family Rain, having supported a list of big name acts including: Biffy Clyro, Jake Bugg, Miles Kane, and The Rolling Stone. Now after months of playing support, the three brothers have kicked off a headlining tour of the UK which included a performance at London’s Heaven on Monday.

The band, clad in an all-black uniform, dive head first into heavily blues based garage rock. The riffs on tunes like “Pushing It” and “Reason to Die” could easily be mistaken for ones by the like of The White Stripes and The Black Keys. The guitar work is very aggressive; with guitarist Ollie Walter hammering out snarling blues riffs and sharp solos. The fretwork isn’t over indulgent; at its core it keeps things very simple and relies on the killer grooves. The thick bass lines give a danceable edge to their heavy sound. Their choruses suggest influences from indie rockers such as the Strokes and the Arctic Monkeys.

The stage went dark with only a faint light from the background as the band went into a new song which they hadn’t played before. The band turned everything down from the chaotic dirty blues to simple country twang with a track that brings to bluegrass tinged jangle of the early work of the White Stripes and the country folk of Townes van Zandt. They made the large stage of Heaven’s main room feel small and intimate as the guitar player and the drummer shared microphones

The band overall deliver a high energy performance, as they stomp about the stage and move to the beat of the music. Throughout the show they exuded a tough guy confidence as the belt out their brand of savage blues rock. Front man William Walter’s delivers his Jack White styled singing with a powerful presence. Though under this confidence there is humbleness, as the band thanked the audience for coming out on a Monday night to see them.

The Family Rain is a band which have huge potential to move on to bigger stages. Despite the obvious nods to their influences, The Family Rain’s heavy hitting brand of blues rock is refreshing. If their forthcoming debut carries the same high octane garage blues as I saw at Heaven on Monday, I don’t see how they couldn’t move on to bigger and better things.