A hushed silence pervades the darkened room. Every seat in the tiny cinema is taken, the audience expectant, waiting for the main event.

But instead of the latest arthouse movie, the crowd are tonight ready for Wheatley minstrels A Silent Film to provide a totally different cinematic experience. The first thing you notice is the thumping drums, reverberating through every seat - and in my case, floor, as it is standing room only when I arrive, an hour before the set. Singer Rob Stevenson's haunting, sweeping vocals effortlessly fill the cinema, which is more used to Scandinavian dialogue and British gangster flicks.

A Silent Film are there to launch their new EP, The Projectionist, and visual effects, projected from a book by lamplight on to a screen, with each page representing a song, are a key part of the act. It takes a brave man to project two 10ft images of yourself on to a screen, labelled Rascal.

But somehow Stevenson gets away with it, in Rascal of Love, perhaps because he is simultaneously painting the depths of the room with raw emotion distilled into rock.

A Silent Film are nothing if not intense - and it's not hard to get lost in the music, sail away on a song, and escape from the drama.