Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Codex Serafini / Amon Acid / Sunbreather – Santiago’s Bar, Leeds, 26th April 2026

Posted: 27 April 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Situated in a retail arcade in Leeds city centre, Santiago’s is a hip but alternative bar (in that it’s £6+ a pint of keg, and they play Nirvana and have band posters on the walls – although they also include rather less obvious bands like OFF! and Cerebral Ballzy) downstairs, and somewhat contrastingly, a poky dive with a capacity of maybe 80, accessed via a rickety staircase and with a stage that’s barely six inches high, upstairs. Said upstairs room affords an unusual view of the streets outside through a large arched window which occupies the entire wall beside the stage. Seeing people and traffic moving around on the street below while the bands perform seems a strange juxtaposition, and with the limited lighting inside the venue, the interior starts unusually bright and grows progressively darker as the night progresses.

Sunbreather’s name may suggest something a bit hippyish, and in some respects, it’s not unrepresentative. They play doom heavily influenced by what in the 70s was heavy metal: that is to say, big Sabbath- style riffs. They play them with a certain swing, too, which is refreshing, and it’s nicely done. They close their four-song set with a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’, stripped back and heavy. The coda is played with the classic bassline at half-pace, with all the weight, and the wild guitar solo replaced by thunderous chords until the very end. It’s an inspired interpretation that works well, and isn’t out of place with the rest of the set.

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Sunbreather

Amon Acid are all about the flares and hair and lace and shades, and if the name sounds like something of a giveaway, then you’d be close enough: their thing is epic stoner doom with the deep infusion of psychedelia. The vocals are low in the mix, bathed in galactic-scale reverb and delay for good measure. The two guitars melt into one another, and while they may not be masters of innovation, they clearly know what they’re doing – and thankfully, the sound engineer has a handle on it, too. Winding up with a mammoth space rock groove, which skims out for an eternity, brings the set to a searing finale. And the longer they play, the hotter it gets. By the end of their set, we’ve all liquefied, and I find myself deliberating whether I need another £6.70 pint of am ok with the prospect of dehydrating.

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Amon Acid

While I’m deliberating, they put the fans on around the room. Meanwhile, some pissed-up cokehead cunt in an orange t-shirt who seemingly thinks he’s at a rave is going off his nut and trying to get onstage while Codex Serafini are setting up, and five minutes before they’re due on I get a sinking feeling and am hoping he’ll be leaving very soon. Mercifully, I realise around a third of the way through the set that he’d fucked off, hopefully his exuberance overtaken by a melted brain.

Codex Serafini are indeed brain-melting, after all. They’re a band I’ve been waiting to see for some time, and given the enormity of their music, the intimate nature of the venue is something of a surprise on some respects. But jazz-infused doom with a punk edge is pretty niche, and an act with albums released on Riot Season are never going to be playing anywhere huge. But this is precisely why we need small venues, and labels like Riot Season. And for all that, they definitely deserve a wider audience: when novelty acts like Angine de Poitrine are racking up millions of views, it’s apparent that the public aren’t averse to stuff that’s different or weird – in fact, they’re drawn to it. Especially when there are outfits and masks involved, as the popularity of Slipknot, Ghost, and Sleep Token (who aren’t nearly as weird as their presentation would suggest) – which means that it mostly comes down to PR. The fact of the matter is that ‘viral’ is almost never ‘organic’. And so here we have Codex Serafini, in red robes and tasselled face-masks, wrapped in Saturnian lore, merging metal, jazz, and post-punk, and this is what the music world needs right now, if only people would realise.

The first half of their ten-song set consists of material from their most recent album, Mother, Give Your Children Sanity, released last November. ‘Cause and Effect’ is an early standout for its deft, vaguely disco-hued drumming and almost funk-tinged groove. Matt McCartney’s bass doubles as rhythm guitar, the incidental melodies and atmosphere brought by the sax. And all the while, the percussion is cataclysmic and the vocals nothing short of other-worldly.

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Codex Serafini

‘Cronus’, ‘Janus’, and ‘Fountains of Enceladus’ are performed back-to-back in the sequence they appeared on Serpents of Enceladus, and Landing as the penultimate song of the set, ‘I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust’ is the sole representation of previous album The Imprecation Of Anima (2023).

At around fifty minutes in duration, their set is intense and sonically immense, filling the space with cathedrals of sound. It’s the last night of the tour in support of Mother, Give Your Children Sanity, and the Leeds reception sees it end on a high. And on a personal level, they were more than worth the wait. Would see again. Many times.

Picking / Gnarled Fingers – Picking / Gnarled Fingers

Posted: 25 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 27th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

This one’s been out for a bit, but was too good to let go without comment. Some will likely thank me for this: others may be less grateful as they sit, hands over their ears, wondering why they should ever pay heed to a word I write. It’s niche and it’s noisy – as the notes which accompany the release on Bandcamp make clear from the outset:

Gnarled Fingers and Picking are two artists drawn together by a shared love of bleak, crushing, low-end oblivion.

Picking is a new raw doom / noise / drone project from Charlie Butler inspired by lifelong incessant excessive picking of nails.

Gnarled Fingers is an experimental, ambient drone project, relentless wall of fuzz and atmosphere, no escape, created after growing up in Somerset Levels with stories of witchcraft and pagan superstition.

The Picking track, ‘Toenail’ sits in the droney doom bracket dominated by Sunn O))), but there’s something magnificently lo-fi about this, which adds a layer of filthy muck and treble distortion that conveys a performance which is of a volume just beyond the capacity of the equipment used to record it. It’s fourteen minutes of raw, howling guitar noise, and because of the way in which they seem to be struggling to contain the feedback while ploughing relentlessly at a loose semblance of a riff, the result is something along the lines of Earth 2 crossed with Metal Machine Music. ‘Uncompromising’ is a word that music journalists and bands alike chuck about, but this is the absolute epitome – although something about this recording is possessed of a primitivism that suggests they don’t know how to do it any other way. Is it uncompromising if that’s the case? Feel free to make that question a topic for debate next time you’re down the pub with your coolly opinionated music-loving mates, but whatever side of the fence you find yourself on, Picking make a gnarly noise, and if your toenails ever bear visual comparison to this, I would strongly recommend consulting a podiatrist, and sooner rather than later, before your entire foot rots off the end of your leg.

Gnarled Fingers showcase a more polished form and a sound which sits closer to the Sunn O))) template of ribcage-rattling density, whereby a chord struck every twenty seconds conjures an atomic detonation that hangs heavy in the air. Downtuned and distorted to the max, their track ‘Echoes from Futures Past’ is a wall of crushing devastation. Sixteen and a half minutes of guitar noise so weighty it feels like how one might imagine being trapped under rubble after a nuclear bomb. Feedback scrapes so abrasively that it strips the skin, and all the while you’re slowly suffocating. It’s brutal.

While some split releases benefit from contrast, this is one where similarity is strength. This type of music is most effective when subjected to prolonged periods of exposure, ideally at high, even extreme volume. The desired effect is complete immersion, to reach the point where your body feels detached, as if its floating. This is some heavy-duty drone shit, and it sure hits the spot.

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Utterly Fuzzled 7.5: Bhajan Boy / Lou Richards / Piró / Andrew DR Abbot / Jo Dale – Fulfordgate WMC, York, 23rd April 2026

Posted: 24 April 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

It may be numbered 7.5 in the Utterly Fuzzled catalogue, but there’s nothing ‘half’ about this event. Showcasing quieter and more acoustic-based acts than usual, it does mark something of a departure from their usual mix of indie / alternative / different / stuff, but this stacked five-act bill still brings variety and quality in equal measure.

The joy of these nights is that you can turn up without knowing anything about the majority of the acts and still know there’ll be plenty of interest, even if it’s not all to your taste. Put another way, an Utterly Fuzzled night is not dissimilar to how it was listening to John Peel: a mixed bag, you might not love all of it, but it would never be dull and you’d always come away with something new that made an impression. And tonight is absolutely no exception.

Jo Dale – event co-organiser and bassist with local favourites Knitting Circle is on early doors, nervous and questioning the wisdom of putting herself on for a solo acoustic set – doesn’t make the obvious choice of playing versions of Knitting Circle songs. Oh no. Instead, it’s a whole new set of songs played on acoustic bass, one of which was penned mere hours before when she realised her set was too short. The combination of nerves and newness make for a slightly shaky start, but she’s a deft tunesmith and the audience is behind her (metaphorically speaking, that is) and she finds her feet and confidence over the course of her handful of songs.

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Jo Dale

Andrew DR Abbot is an old hand, and a longstanding feature of the DIY scene in the North. It was more than a quarter of a century since I first stumbled upon him playing baritone guitar as one half of That Fucking Tank, supporting Whitehouse at The Grapes in Sheffield. Whitehouse were too quiet and rather disappointing on that occasion, and TFT were the act of the night by miles. While now performing – again with James Islip, and still with the baritone guitar – as Lands and Body, he’s also doing solo stuff which is an electroacoustic sort of set up, involving field recordings by way of a backing to guitar that’s looped and layered. He’s at ease on stage, and the set simply flows. Starting with a 12-string guitar and switching to an eight-string, Abbot deploys a bottle, a tiny bow, and various other tools to augment some technically proficient picking and fretwork. Cascading notes create an immersive, atmospheric continuous piece which transitions through a sequence of passages. To say that it’s ‘nice’ may sound weak and noncommittal, but as a listening experience, that’s exactly what it is, and I find myself feeling calm but subtly exhilarated.

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Andrew DR Abbot

Piró – over from Spain and touring alongside Andy Abbott – plays vibrant folksy songs with a Latin flavour, routing an acoustic guitar through some pedals with loops and distortion making for some interesting sounds. His set was marred somewhat by some noisy sods at the back who talked and laughed constantly, and talked and laughed louder during the louder parts. But like a pro, he kept a level head and simply played on, and gave us some nicely worked loops and guitar detail in songs performed with heart.

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Piró

Lou Richards’ set was a compact affair comprising just four songs, the last of which was a John Cale cover performed alongside one of her former bandmates. But less is more, particularly when it comes to poetical words paired with delicately picked clean electric guitar. It’s pleasant, a very different kind of folk, about hedgerows and heritage, nature and nurturing.

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Lou Richards

Bhajan Boy is sporting a Fall T-shirt and brings big drones which form the basis of a set that builds slowly and deliberately, with some clattering and clanking that adds considerable texture. It’s only gradually that the drone evolves into a dense noise, as the set bhuilds subtly in layers and volume. Twenty minutes in and I’m wondering how much further he can take it, how much more he can add. That’s when he starts on the bellows and the sound really swells to a huge swashing sonic tide, rendered all the more full-spectrum by bleeps and crackling distortion, before gradually pulling back through a very long tapering wind down.

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Bhajan Boy

It’s an immersive soundscape, which is very different from the rest of the lineup. This in itself is the quintessence of the Utterly Fuzzled ethos, and in a time where live music is struggling and touring is difficult, a night like tonight stands as a beacon.

Chaidura – Plastic Beauty

Posted: 24 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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10th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Postmodernism supposedly not only marked, but celebrated, the death of originality. Some time after the turn of the millennium, postmodern irony and the wit of parody began to evaporate, and now everything simply draws on explicitly stated influences. Art has become an endless treadmill of predictable recycling. There are rare exceptions, of course, and Chaidura is rare indeed.

Chaidura has been on the scene for a couple of years now, during which time he’s birthed an EP, Temple Paradise, and some standalone singles, showcasing styles ranging from JRock to emo, with his bio describing this work as ‘blending visual kei, emo, and alternative rock into a sound that’s heavy, emotional, and honest’.

Now resident in London, but raised in Asia, where, he says ‘beauty is often weaponized as a prerequisite for success’, ‘Plastic Beauty’ is the third single to be taken from forthcoming EP, Liminal. And what a single it is! It’s nothing short of an explosion of ideas– an entire album’s worth and more (hell, many bands with careers spanning decades don’t demonstrate this many ideas), packed into less than four minutes – leaping wildly yet also effortlessly and immaculately from one genre to another with each of the multitudinous segments.

And yes, the presentation is stunning – musically, of course, but also visually – taking cues from Adam Ant and Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ – to forge something that is nothing short of spectacular, while at the same time presenting a strong message. Opening with a soft piano intro, we’re soon thrown into some loungey jazz with an understated drum ‘n’ bass beat before – a mere thirty seconds in – being hit with a ferocious blast of metal. The experience is akin to watching Roger Moore as James Bond being spun at organ-damaging speed in a centrifuge in Moonraker, one where you mind feels as if it’s been separated from your body and transported to another dimension. It’s like all of the new year’s fireworks from around the globe going off simultaneously. And yet, incredibly, it’s got a huge chorus with an instant hook that’ll be an earworm for a week. Nothing short of phenomenal. Now, excuse me while I go and lie down for a bit.

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Landscape

Froglord / Space Pistol / Troll Mother – The Fulford Arms, York, 21st April 2026

Posted: 22 April 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Suspicious Liquid had originally been down to open this evening’s dark proceedings, but they’ve been replaced by Troll Mother. While not getting to see Suspicious Liquid again is disappointing, southern power sludge duo Troll Mother are everything their name suggests… or are they? They’re more Mötörhead than Melvins, with a hardcore punk edge in places. They also boast an absolutely fucking MASSIVE drum kit, meaning that when the drummer takes on vocal duties – something they share – it’s not always immediately obvious because he’s largely obscured by a huge bank of toms and a swathe of cymbals. They make a cracking racket, too, with next to no pauses for the full duration of their half-hour set.

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Troll Mother

Space Pistol bring the riffs, and they do evoke Melvins, as well as Faith No More, and Hawk Eyes, among others. The three are decked out in matching orange boiler suits and the bassist, who has a board with about 36 pedals plays with his face. He also leaps and bounds – and yes, positively cavorts – about the stage with a flamboyance that’s uncommon to a bad that are this big on hefty riffs. There are false endings galore, and at one point they lock statue-like positions and maintain silence for maybe a good twenty seconds, during which time you could hear a pin drop. They absolutely love this, to the extent that it seems that this moment is a career high point for them. Since they’ve come all the way from Milton Keynes for this, we’re pleased that York is a memorable show for them, and I’m pretty sure they’d be welcome back up here any time.

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Space Pistol

Froglord, meanwhile, are making a return visit after just eleven months. The concept is pretty ludicrous, the stage show even more so: a stoner / doom band all about amphibians, kitted out in masks and arranging their sets as some form of swamp-centric ritual. The fact that they’ve eked this out across six albums now is nothing short of remarkable. But the fact that every show is an event, shaped by that sense of occasion and ritual is part of the appeal – that and the fact the performances are entertaining and they really know how to riff.

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Froglord

But there is a certain serious element to the band (not that heavyweight sludgy riffs in themselves aren’t serious), in that they’re genuinely eco-conscious, and their frog fixation isn’t all just japes, with 100% of the proceeds from digital sales of their new album, Lower & Slower Vol 1, released in March, are being donated to the Waterfowl & Wetland Trust (WWT) – the wetland charity, as well as 50% of all physical media and merch profits. Or, as they put it, ‘At it’s [sic] core, Froglord have always been an environmentally [sic]-driven band. Through their fundraising and tale of an amphibious deity, reeking vengenace [sic] on humanity for the environmental destruction they caused.’ Personally, I like them even more for this. Once could reasonably argue that just a handful of the world’s billionaires could eradicate poverty and save the planet and not even notice a reduction in lifestyle and that Froglord’s sales aren’t even a drop in a puddle in comparison, but that’s not the point: the point is that these guys actually care, and are using their platform for good.

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Froglord

They also put on a great show. It’s no huge development on the last time around: their website positions it as follows: ‘Returning with brand new masks, costumes, and a 6th studio album, Froglord deliver another massive offering of amphibious swamp doom. Recorded live in the studio in a single take, Lower & Slower briefly pauses the band’s concept storytelling of the Tale of The Froglord saga, instead revisiting six previously released tracks from across their discography’. And the fact is, it works: tonight’s performance feels very much like a consolidation, and they seem particularly focused, the set’s structure absolutely honed to perfection in every way. They drop a powerful cover of ‘Iron Man’ early in the second half of the set, and in many ways, this speaks for itself. The bassist plays wearing a frog glove puppet for a while, and after the ritual circulating of the giant rubber toad later in the set, said toad is then used to bash bass strings before eventually tucked in the crook of an elbow in a more friendly fashion for a time.

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Froglord

Admirably, they never break character for a moment: this is outstanding theatre. It’s also outstanding, riff-driven fun. All hail the Froglord!

Karobela – Love Letter to No One

Posted: 22 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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17th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Either the members of Karobela – who are jointly credited with the lyrics – have had some really shitter personal experiences, or they’re keen when it comes to observing some of the more negative aspects of relationships and social interaction.

Whereas previous single, ‘Afterthought’, which came out in December, dealt with being dropped, forgotten, kicked to the curb, ‘Love Letter To No One’ explores, as they put it, ‘the profound emotional turmoil caused by the contemporary issue of ‘ghosting’, capturing the lingering heartache it leaves behind’.

In name, ‘ghosting’ is very much a contemporary issue, and certainly, it’s easier to vanish virtually than in real life. It’s hard to ghost someone who works in the same office or whatever. But in the pre-Internet days, people would just stop writing, stop phoning, and you couldn’t even search on Facebook to see if they were still alive. But one difference in that is the time delay, in that you’d wait days, weeks for a letter, and the time span of the uncertainty was something which elongated gradually: there were no messages unread, no disappearing profiles. And as we’ve come to depend on immediate back-and-forth, even a minute waiting for a message to be picked up can feel like a lifetime. And it’s this angst which is the subject of ‘Love Letter to No One’.

It’s a step up in terms of ambition for the band, being the first track in a projected four-part narrative following the romantic experiences of a female protagonist, and musically, it’s got some beef to it, with a chunky riff and strong vocal delivery that does convey emotional turmoil. In many ways, it’s rock music of the kind that you don’t hear so much at the moment. That said, it’s driven by a disco-tinged beat and has more of a dance-leaning breakdown in the middle.

With a chorus that’s all hook, and tightly packed into a fraction over three minutes, ‘Love Letter to No One’ is a work of precision, and a first-rate single cut.

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Karobela Promo shot 2

TSR2 – Transmission

Posted: 20 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Wormhole World – 20th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Given the diminishing number of grassroots venue and the changing nature of live music consumption – whereby the masses flock to £60+ arena shows, and are happy to pay £20 or more to see a third-rate tribute act while swilling £8 pints and yammering away loudly to their mates for the entire evening, with barely one ear on the music, it’s small wonder acts who are new and / or more niche struggle to get bookings. And without taking your music to a new audience through live shows, if you can’t afford PR to plug your music to radio stations and the like, how are artists ever to break through the algorithmic recommendations and reach people? This is even more of a challenge for experimental electronic acts, as most small venues are more likely to showcase ‘bands’ or guitar-based music in the main, unless they’re doing something that’s promotable as ‘electropop’ or similar.

It’s thanks to the EMOM (Electronic Music Open Mic) network, and, in particular, the EMOM nights in York, hosted by North Facing Garden at The Fulford Arms – one if the most accommodating venues there is, who don’t only welcome weird and experimental shit, but have sound engineers who are up to the job of facilitating the kind of noise the acts who play such events are striving for, that I’ve caught TSR2 live on numerous occasions. These nights don’t only host bedroom explorers just starting out, but acts with respectable recording careers who simply can’t get a foothold on the regular gig circuit. And TSR2 certainly have quite a recording career already.

A yin / yang / pro / con of the EMOM format is that each performer gets just fifteen minutes, which is great by way of a showcase, a taster, and also great if you’re not digging it as no act is on long enough for it to get boring, but of you are digging it, or the music itself requires a more expansive set…

Transmission is TSR2 serving a more expansive set, with ten tracks and a running time in the region of an hour. It’s their second release on Lancashire label Wormhole World, following Birdstrike! in 2024, and it brings full-spectrum bleeps, churn, and imaginative abstraction, and the first composition – which is also the title track – brings all of this simultaneously, with space-age heavy drone given structure by some industrial strength beats which hit hard.

There’s ambient abstraction and swirling spaciness in abundance, all the oscillations and layers bouncing back and forth off one another, skittering and surging, with moments which elicit the essence of R2D2, others which are more like wading through long grass while struggling to find the path.

Muffled samples merge with the delirious digital meltdown that is ‘Modern Life’ and while it does have me briefly contemplating ‘Darker Avenues’, samples float and echo around the darker ambient spaces of ‘The Salt Marsh’. The ten-minute ‘Sewer Lawyer Logic’ is a dark, detailed exploration which ventures into dank sonic territories, and ‘Some Of You Had Better Go Home’ wanders between the terrains of Krautrock and Industrial – specifically at the point where Chris and Cosey make their departure to spawn techno.

Transmission evokes the atmosphere of space travel – but more in the sense we imagine than of the latest vanity loop around the moon – and laser-squirting sci-fi explorations. It’s a varied album, which presents shades of both light and darkness and ever-shifting moods.

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Ecce Shnak – Shadows Grow Fangs

Posted: 19 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

Few bands are less predictable than New York’s Ecce Shnak, and their catalogue is a veritable smorgasbord of flavours and textures. Their last release was the standalone single, ‘Katy’s Wart’, a two-and-a-half minute grungy punk rager presented in the middle of a sort of weirdy supernatural teen drama short film. Before that there as the live EP Backroom Sessions, a 4-song live set recorded at Backroom Studios in Rockaway, NJ released to coincide with a US West Coast tour with Spacehog and EMF.

Then, there was their being featured in the video for EMF’s ‘LGBTQ+ Lover’.

And now, a year on, they finally return to promote their last studio EP, Shadows Grow Fangs, on the East Coast, before hitting Europe and the UK (sadly no longer part of Europe for trade and touring, despite its continental geography), again with EMF – a band who’ve evolved significantly since they first broke in the early 90s. It seems like an appropriate time to catch up with this varied and inventive five-song set.

‘Prayer of Love’ brings together an almost trippy, psychedelic vibe and shades off prog, with a shuffling beat and an almost Cure-like bass. There’s some guitar noise kicking away low in the mix, too, and contrasts abound, although it’s nothing in comparison to ‘The Internet’. It’s 2026 (yes, the EP was released in 2025, but still) – and The Internet has become such a fact of life it’s largely overlooked as a thing. News articles quote comments made in response to posts on X or Instagram as if they have some value, and no-one considers this weird or devaluing. How is it any different from quoting some bloke down the pub or a street heckle as commentary? The track opens with layers of chatter and the scrattering of a reverby shoegaze guitar, then a shuffling beat slides in and in an instant it’s a rap / opera / math-rock hybrid. In some ways, it feels like a retro hybrid that evokes the days when sampling and scratching were innovate and it’s at least twenty years too late, but at the same time, it feel timely, in that never before has shit been stranger, more messed up, more bewildering, as the generation gap grows wider by the week and the different generations – A, Z, X, boomers – evolve their own languages which are incomprehensible to anyone other than their peers. Does anyone actually know what anyone else is saying, let alone what’s going on?

The title track is bombastic and theatrical, but also a bit post-rock and a bit chamber pop and a bit drum ‘n’ bass. The last time I heard anything quite this headspinning was when I discovered Birdeatsbaby, who veered between dark cabaret and metal, while incorporating elements of classical and prog.

The EP’s final song, ‘Stroll With Me’ marks a significant shift, as a sparse, acoustic folk song with gentle organ tones, which is disarming and genuinely pretty.

None of the songs on here sound like any of the others, and nothing on Shadows Grow Fangs sounds like ‘Katy’s Wart’ – or anything else for that, for that matter: Ecce Shnak tunes are like a box of chocolates – only better, because they’ll not rot your teeth and will give your brain something to chew on. What they’ll do next is anyone’s guess, and the live shows are certainly going to be interesting.

AA

TOUR DATES
MAY 07  Philadelphia, PA, USA – Nikki Lopez
MAY 08  Buffalo, NY, USA  – Town Ballroom
MAY 09  Toronto, ON, Canada – Dance Cave
MAY 10  Montreal, QC, Canada – Bar Le Ritz
MAY 11  Boston, MA, USA  – City Winery
MAY 13  New York, NY, USA  – Sony Hall
MAY 14  Millersville, PA, USA  – Phantom Power
MAY 15  Baltimore, MD, USA  – Metro Gallery
MAY 16  Hamden, CT, USA  – Space Ballroom
JUN 02  Manchester, UK – Gorilla
JUN 03  Worthing, UK – The Factory Live
JUN 04  Portsmouth, UK – Kola
JUN 05  Southend, UK – Chinnerys
JUN 06  London, UK – The Garage
JUN 07  Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club

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Ecce

Salvation / The InSect / The Scarlet Hour – The Fulford Arms, York, 17th April 2026

Posted: 18 April 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

This is one of those occasions where music critique intersects with personal experience. I make no apology for this. I’ve long maintained that one’s relationship with music is personal, and it goes beyond the fact that the soundtrack of your life is something which evolves in ways beyond your control.

The first time I saw Salvation was ay my first ‘proper’ gig, when I was 14: they were supporting The Mission at Sheffield City Hall in March 1990. I didn’t know who they were at the time. But I soon discovered that they were an integral part of the early 80s Leeds milieu, and they’re noteworthy for having their first two singles produced by different members of The Sisters of Mercy, among other things.

The last time I saw them was at The Brudenell in Leeds, the day after the Queen died, and ahead of it, my wife bought me one of their T-shirts. It turned out to be the last birthday present she bought me, as she died just four months later. So here I am, wearing that shirt, to see a band I first saw thirty-six years ago, playing just fifteen minutes from my house in a 150-capacity pub venue. It’s a big deal, but also an occasion which lands with mixed emotions.

The Scarlet Hour are a duo with programmed synth and drum backing and live bass. But there’s an awkwardness about them and their set. The sound is a bit thin – that’s thanks to the bass and backing track being proportionally quiet, and the fairly clean vocals being a bit high in the mix, meaning the cliché lyrics are more audible than is desirable, and the vocals – trying and failing to sound menacing and tortured don’t help. Tim Synistyr (who really is anything but) has the poses – not to mention the leather jacket, open snakeskin-patterned shirt and ‘Body Electric’ T-shirt – but no aspect of the performance feels natural, the poses come across as being forced as the off-key singing. Dose makes the poison, and the naffness has a cumulative effect, making for a long half hour. ‘Stay Awake’ sounds like New Order circa ’83 and ‘Afterlife’ calls to mind the flimsy pop of Depeche Mode’s ‘New Life’ – novel, and a decent enough tune, but it would be a long time before they got interesting. Unfortunately, that’s something The Scarlet Hour never do. The applause is more polite than enthusiastic.

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The Scarlet Hour

The InSect, who released their debut album As It Ever Was a week ago, have a much more elaborate stage show and a full band lineup. Despite the fact I’m a fan of drum machines myself, their performance strikes a huge contrast with The Scarlet Hour’s in terms of dynamics, volume, sonic density, and energy, and much of this is on account of the band-ness they present. In terms of presentation, they’ve a lot more going for them, too: The Insect are flamboyant and theatrical, and look comfortable acting up and bringing the show to the audience. Ed Banshee is a natural from man who spends a good portion of the set among the crowd, and Athena FireChild provides the perfect interplay. Instrumentally, they’re tight, and compositionally and stylistically, there are strong hints of Bauhaus. They go all out to put on a show, to entertain, with bright white lights and various other accoutrements adding to the atmosphere. But ultimately, it’s their energy that makes their set what it is.

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The InSect

And so, to Salvation. For tonight, SASS-era guitarist Adam Clarkson is back in the band at short notice, and this has necessitated a revised set-list from the one played at The Old Woollen in Farsley a week or so previous – but as this seemingly means the reintroduction of ‘Jessica’s Crime’ in place of a cover of ‘Don’t Change’ by INXS, it’s hardly a bad thing. They confess to a few slips during the set, but it’s unlikely anyone out front noticed: the keenest of fans are getting down and busting moves at the front from the start, and this is a relaxed show, with some good-natured back-and-forth between band and audience throughout.

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Salvation

Salvation sound absolutely fantastic, and again highlight the difference between the old-school drum machine bands and more recent ones: they know how to crank up the beats – and the synth bass – to create a full sound which is at least equal to live instrumentation. Perhaps more specifically it’s an early 80s Leeds thing, but they, like The March Violets at The Warehouse last year, sound loud and vibrant, with a bass drum sound that truly kicks and a snare that cracks right into the cranium, punching through the interweaving mesh of the dual guitars.

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Salvation

They were always at the more accessible end of the spectrum in comparison to The Sisters and The Violets, but at the heart of songs like ‘The Shining’, there’s that solid bass groove, pumping drum sound, and nifty guitar work – and live, the guitars pack more punch than on the recordings. Tonight’s rendition of ‘Jessica’s Crime’ lands between the more guitar-orientated version recorded for she shelved Clash of Dreams album for Merciful Release, and the Wayne Hussey produced viola-soaked rerecording, released as a single in 1985, and it’s nothing short of killer. ‘All and More’ lands near the end of the set, which closes with ‘Why Lie’, and the pretence of an encore is tossed aide as they leap into a fun, chuggy cover of ‘Kids in America’ which brings the set to an elated conclusion.

And for all the weight of personal history pressing into this outing for me, I’m more than glad I turned out.

The 113 – The Hedonist

Posted: 17 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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17th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The singles leading up to the release of The Hedonist, the second EP by The 113 have very much been cause for excitement and built a buzz about the band. Each of the four songs is tense, taut, edgy, quickfire vocals spitting lyrical depictions of the grim present in which we find ourselves with a splenetic urgency against a noisy backdrop where the combination of bass, drums, and guitar – in themselves, completely conventional – meld to forge a dense, unified aural assault.

As they put it, The Hedonist ‘revolves thematically around an anti-technology sentiment, raising questions about data, online worlds and how these can be weaponised against you.’ This – and various surveys and reports – is indicative of an increasingly anti-technology (and certainly an anti-AI) sentiment among younger generations. They have reason for concern, and it’s hard to decide what’s scarier, the prospect how personal data will be used, or how entire swathes of jobs will cease to exist in the imminent future. Anyone who blithely pisses about making caricatures and action figures in the name of fun is not only missing the point: they’ve already sold their soul and more. They’re part of the machine.

We’re living in every single dystopian fiction ever created all at once, right now. This isn’t hyperbole. And it feels as if we’re all trapped and helpless. It’s small wonder we’re experiencing a mental health crisis as we see an entire generation coming through paranoid and scared as we witness an existential threat in many ways worse than the cold war, inasmuch as it’s a war on all fronts.

The 113 recognise this, and The Hedonist is an articulation of this infinitely-faceted terror. Every single track is a standout, and in sustaining the high level of intensity across the whole EP, the potency of the material is amplified. Where The Hedonist succeeds is in the way it doesn’t depart from the blueprint of the debut, To Combat Regret, but instead builds on it.

It’s by no means music to chill out to: quite the opposite, in fact. It’ll likely raise your blood pressure and make you clench your jaw and fists. But if there’s a band that encapsulates the zeitgeist, it’s The 113.

AA

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