Hell, hi everybody, and welcome back finally to another edition of hyper Blast.
It's been a minute to be done one of these. This is That's
No Metal, your weekly rock, metal and punk news show. It's been
a hell of a few weeks. The bulk of this episode is actually going
to be a recap of another of those things that we've all been rocking up
to. We're going to be talking all about this weekend's Outbreak festival a bit
later. But for the first time in a minute, we have got a
hyper Blast with other goings on and the weekly releases and so on for you
as well. I'm paren Hash, Sam Dignon and Elliott Paisley are both here
with me. We actually all met up together in the same room for the
first time time at this weekend, so that's that's always nice. Yeah,
no, it was nice. I actually meet Elliott properly chanting for a webcam.
It was it was cool, still recovering from Outbreak, like got the
bruises to show for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,
as far as first impressions, a goal coming over sweaty and it wasn't probably
the ideal way to start, and I thought every week I'd come on and
talk about him to rehydrate myself. I thought it's the only thing I've talked
about recently, but that was another level. Yeah. So as said,
this is the outbreak episode. Because we haven't had a news episode in like
a good two or three weeks. There is a little bit when you need
to catch up on. We're not going to talk about everything that happened like
two weeks ago because there's little point, is there, you know most of
those things. But we have got a couple of exciting album announcements and things
like that. Quickly, I will address the thing that has been an ongoing
development in the time that we've not been doing new shows is not a fun
one and it's something that you don't want to have to talk about. But
we are of course aware of the allegations surrounding Till Lindiman at the moment,
and this is something where there is currently an the way investigation legally into what
has gone on. So we don't want to weigh too heavily into what is
happening, but it is of course a highly distressing situation. It definitely doesn't
you know, it doesn't look good for anyone, So that the band have
continued to be on tour madly while this has been going on. Christoph Schneider
made a statement about it a little while ago. We will see what the
outcome of the situation is. But as a podcast that has been like highly
positive about Ramstyne in the past, we're sort of obliged to acknowledge it and
it is just, of course, just very upsetting seeing an investigation like this
going down. While we were away at Outbreak, some other tiny, small
fry festival was going on the same weekend called Glastonbury. We had a bit
of major rock representation there, with most notably Guns and Roses becoming another of
like the few proper hard rock bands to headline the thing. But we also
had like a surprise set from the Food Fighters turning up that looked like everyone's
turning up everywhere else as well. Yeah, I loved Dave Grohl doing a
little bow at the end of the Guns of Roses set. It's like you
did nothing, but everyone's only a lovely time then I'm not. I didn't
watch the Food Fight set myself. I did watch Guns and Roses. Axel
was looking good and not sounding it. Yeah, I think like he sounded
bad A lot of this like worst Class and the headlines. Ever, I'm
like, oh, come on, Like it wasn't like he was bad.
The bound sounded super tight and they're playing amazing songs. The people in the
field seemed to be enjoying it. Like I said, like, he's murdering
these songs, but I don't want to give him too much of a kick
in, Like dude lived through side, like he's had a life, you
know, if he can't hit those notes anymore whatever, like let him,
like I've seen he's just live in this form. And I was like,
he does not sound good, but you're normally very keen to give old rock
bands a kick up the end. I know I am, but because because
when I saw everyone else doing it, and I was kind of just like,
it feels a bit mean at this point, Like I didn't want to
be too mean on this one because I was also like when they hit like
Welcome to the Jungle one, they hit that dander into the last chorus,
I'm like, in with Axel being shit, welcome to the fucking jungle in
it, like it's a weird thing with X sign because you've got twenty years
of being fucking terrible and then two years of being good, and then another
six or so years of being too, and then was just disappointed all over
again. And it's like this, no one has said a word for twenty
years. Everything was fine, and then now everyone's surprise doesn't sound all that
great. There is one good thing that's covered to this backlash, and it's
the ACXL. Rose I think actually called out the guy from the Independent and
the Telegraph by name or something, which might in the ring part too.
It may you come facts a row. You've gotta be ready to deal with
it. He's got history. Yeah, it turns of counteracting that, it
should be said. The Queens of the Stone Age set looked fucking amazing,
like I've watched a couple of sets from their summer festival run like ahead of
us reviewing the album last week, but this one was even better. For
a start, opening five songs of the set, go with the Flow,
The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, My God is the Sun, Smooth
Sailing Little Sister. If I saw them come out and open with those five
songs in that order, I would punch myself so hard in the face I
would do a backflip. That is fucking bananas. But and there was also
a clip was you know, go around Twitter of them doing the beginning of
a song for the Dead and Josh, you're out the front. They're being
like, I fucking run this place. You don't move till I say move,
And then that riff coming in. It's like proper cock shore swagger and
power. Great to see them back out of doing it like that level of
ump, properly brilliant. Bodes super well for a tour later this year.
The Food Fighters also have announced a UK tour for later in this year.
There was a lot of theorizing about like whether that rules them out of a
download performance or not, And I don't really know why that's a conversation.
Very very clearly it would, wouldn't it. Yeah, you're not gonna do
download in the midst of a stadium room. Yeah. And into music from
the last couple of weeks that we still want to highlight. First off,
I'm sure most of you were aware of by now, but we should check
in on the fact that Baroness have returned and they have announced their new albums
Stone is going to be out September the fifteenth, and they released a single
from that last word. Another one of these cases where we've brought a band
back the hotel you have been teasing something. They're touring there. They've announced
a tour like in America. I'm hoping it gets UK dates that the album
club package, you know what. Two bands back into activity. We were
doing it. Yeah, but I'm ready for new Baroness Stone not a color.
They said they were done with colors after Golden Gray. I think the
cover art for this, considering they've been sort of untethered from just using one
color palette, it almost kind of tight has bits of all of them in
there, doesn't it all their album? Yeah? Obviously John Basilely album art
is always amazing, but there was something cool about seeing it's been like,
oh, there's lots of different colors to choose from the treat but there is
like you know, there is a bit of blue and purple, like red
and like green and yellow. It's all in there. But like, yeah,
the amount of people I was like, I should want to listen to
Baroness simply just because of how good the album art is. I'm like,
you should listen to Baroness because they're fucking brilliant. But yes, and the
song last word. As a song, it's got a big old riff.
I've got to again, I've got to live with it more to see whether
the melodies really stick around to the degree of their best. And so it
had a big old riff. And my main takeaway from it was hearing that
big old riff and hearing the production on it and being like everyone's wish of
them moving away from flaming lips man who made them all sound like a you
know, an iPhone speaker. It's all come true. Baroness sound fat again.
Yeah, this has got heffed to it. It's got power mental guitar
so no that I'm still not entirely to how I feel about the guitar,
but the main kind of just hooks the main riffs. This is what I
want from Baroness. I'm loving this. Well. They sound like a band
again, which I mean Purple is fucking great. Gold and Gray I think
I had really good songs on it, but the mix or the production whatever
it was, made those records feel really stifling and kind of impenetrable. And
it's nice you also listen to a Baroness record or a song at least without
feeling like you need to wear a snorkele, because just having that space between
the instruments and that interplay makes it so much more refreshing. Like John and
Gina, I think sound amazing in the second half. That's the thing that
makes me really excited about this next record, and that live in the room
quality, which, like I said when we did the Yellow and Green album,
just suits them more than maybe any other band. Yeah, I mean,
again curious to have the first record that's not a color and you know
that cover again being all the different ones, it's kind of cool. But
yeah, I don't know if it's gonna be a big musical departure, but
I'm pretty I'm always excited, but particularly excited after this. Yeah. Like
I said, for me, the big win from this hint just to hearing
the song with its own was Sonically it sounds great, and I'm excited to
get an album of Baroness material that I'll probably like because I always like Baroness
material. But it sounds like it's going to actually sound really strong as well.
So in terms of getting me excited for the album, I want more
stuff where with a world like this I can want to live in like that,
that's definitely a positive. Cannibal Corpse also have come back with a new
album very quick. I couldn't believe how quickly we're getting a Cannibalorps record at
this time. The last time they were that swift between albums was I think.
I guess Torture and a Skeletal Domain was like about two and a half
years, which is the same as this. But I couln't believe we had
to fall up to violence on a manion so quickly. It's called Chaos Horrific,
which is just great, just smashing words together. It's gonna be out
in September the twenty second. How's this for a tour? They're touring in
the US with Mayhem Gore Gut some Blood Incantation along with them. That is
an unbelievable with Night of Extreme Metal. But this song they've released to make
called blood Bind. The first riff in it feels like a fucking like monster
truck grinding your skull into a pulp. It's unbelievably heavy the opening riff in
this song. The rest of the song is good, but I'm so like
bowled over by just the opening like minute of it. I'm just like,
oh, I don't really know what happens after that point. I'm just squashed
over that riff, dirty and nasty as well as just being really fucking heavy,
and there's almost consider It feels like it gets a bit more clean and
polished once you get past that first riff in a way, because he's just
disgusting. But yeah, good first impression on that riff, and I like
it's Cannibal corpusng in it, like like they do really good death metal and
they still do. I think this is a banger, Yeah, Eric Rutern.
I mean, he can stay for as long as he likes. He
knows how to write a groaning, diseased riff, and then when the tempo
kicks in, Cannibal Corpse have that temple tempo which is perfect for slow circle
pits, and no one else can get even closer doing it to their level
in thirty five years later, no one's come close. Yeah the other this
is a great new single and lyrically, I mean, Cannibal Corps lyrics have
kind of moved away from where they used to be, But I was really
this is one of the more what are you want about? Case I should
do? You're trying I was trying to what does blood blind boo? What
does blood blind even mean? Is it as nonsensical as the fall Out Boy
song we're going to talk about? Oh not quite yeah. I mean it's
one of the things where you always trying to work out what the horrible thing
George's describing, and I still love no clue, but it's an ideal,
sweaty death hell show fair song. Just quickly on Eric Routan, I thought
it was interesting when they release a single sometimes, like when bands announced an
album have a single with it, they have like one member to a quote
like, you know this song, we thought it would be the good first
single from the album for XX reasons. Our albums really pushed it to the
limit whatever. The quote that came with the album was from Eric Rutan where
it was like, I really wanted to push the writing in this direction.
And I think it's fascinating that, like I've never seen that before, where
like the mouthpiece quote for the announcement of an album goes to the member who's
just joined on the album before. I know he's been involved with canterbal Courts
for a longer period than that, and he's a legend in his own right,
But that was a very fascinating move when I guess shows that obviously the
level of sort of trust and respect and how just quickly has become a center
part of the Cannibal courts fold. The fact that, you know, the
first word in the album campaign didn't go to Alex Webster, didn't go to
anyone else who's been in the band for a long period of time. I
went to Eric Rutan. But yeah, exciting the arm. They've also got
a new album out on August the twenty fifth that's called Perfect Saviors. The
last one, Ultrapop, was a mad record that a lot of people I'm
aland I'm still trying to get their heads around, so better hurry up because
there's a new one coming. And also a band I am a big,
big fan of called Maggot Heart, have announced that they've got a new album
called Hunger that was going out of September the twenty ninth. I really really
liked that band. They are very very good, jagged modern post punk.
They've released a single from this it's really really good as well, So that's
coming out. As mentioned, the most baffling piece of music, certainly of
this week, maybe of the year I don't know goes to another than Fallout
Boy, who lest we forget, have released their best album in like fifteen
years earlier this year. It's not the highest bar in the world. We
weren't enamored by the album, but it does have the first good Fallout Boy
material on it, I would say, of the reunion era. So they
were slightly more in their good books than they have been recently. And then
they do one of the most I don't understand why you've done this thing they
have ever done in their entire career, Like they must be stopped like this
is I'm like, I saw someone just glide them as hack fucks off the
back of this, and I'm like, I agree with you this, Like
it's mainly because they have completely missed the point of the song they're covering.
I mean, on one hand, you respect the just no fucks given.
They do whatever they want. That being in for that boy is probably just
a massive laugh to them, Like they probably don't have to take anything seriously.
They just do whatever batshit things they fancy shitting out on that particular day.
But we are of course talking about their cover of Billy Joels. We
didn't start the fire which has updated the lyrics to essentially pick up where Billy
Joel left off, So it goes from nineteen eighty nine through to the present
day. In terms of newsworthy events, they seem but it does seem gotten
the memo that the only thing that particularly is I don't know that the main
point of we Didn't Start the Fire, which has always been a novelty song
more than a great one. Right, But if there's anything going for we
Didn't Start the Fire, it's the idea that it brings you, like we
The first time I ever heard that song was in like a secondary school history
class, right because we were just learning about America in the twenty your century,
you know, um, nuclear arms race, whatever, and it's like,
oh, here's a song that just spits all these events at you linear
fashion, so you remember theogical order. Yes, I don't understand how full
O boy have forgotten that part of the pie, you know, because they
couldn't rhyme it, like it was like they're just gonna, okay, what
rhymes When you were rhyming Arab Spring with Rodney King in the first two lines
of the song, you've jumped backwards twenty years there, straight from the Get
Go SpongeBob Golden State Killer Court. I don't even like why Rodney King did
not Rodney King did not die to immediately be followed by deep fakes, you
know, earthquakes. I mean, I already think we didn't start the fight
as one of the worst songs ever made, and I did it when when
I found out they were doing this, I thought, surely they've updated.
I hope they've updated it, because otherwise what's the point. And the listening
to you're like, why the fuck did you update it? This is like
Uni bomb at Uni Bob at John un bomb at Bob it John bombing Boston
Marathon in Patrick Stump's voice is not the one. I like that Tom DeLong
Aliens has been like deemed significant enough. Maybe historically it will be if he
is deemed to be the guy who you know, brought us all into the
earlier the true into you know, dimension, into cosmic kind of age.
But the one that kills me is George Floyd Vine with Metroid. Like Metroid,
you know, a video game that started in the eighties, I believe,
like, I mean that was like eighty nine nineteen ninety was like a
Nez game, metroid. You know this is we're going way back in early
video game terms, and that's why he rehymes George Floyd. I even feel
uncomfortable kind of talking about it, because obviously we're kind of laughing at how
ridiculous to move this song is. But you don't want to be laughing about
something that's name checking George Floyd and Rodney King and like a lot. And
I know that must to some degree be true with the original we didn't start
the fire. Maybe it's because we are I don't know, distant enough from
some of those events to kind of have them fall out of that. But
there's something about really jaunty, upbeat Patrick Stump saying world trade, second plane?
What else do I have to say? That's like I don't know why
we shouldn't been in this timeline where And then that is something you can hear.
And let's have the line of like that nine eleven line, and then
not just have Patrick Stump comment but with the worst high school musical backing vocals
of like we didn't started Yeah, Like why did no one? Like?
Sure the number of people this must have gone through to get released by a
major label by a big rock band and for no one to go. I'm
sorry, the buck stops here. We are this can't go anything. SpongeBob,
Golden State Killer got caught Like what that this is the most like we
are too, Like we have reached a point where we are two online,
where this has been allowed to be birthed, and you have this kind of
meme quality to like Shinzo Abbey blown away. Like that's the way, which
is if this is meant to be nostalgic, the way we didn't start the
fire is you're not going to reminisce in this order either. You're not gonna
go Trimber, SpongeBob oh and the Golden State Kid. Yeah, I don't.
I don't understand the ordering of at all. I don't understand who asked
for it. I don't understand whose idea it was. Um, I don't
I do understand what the emotional takeaway is going to be. Is it going
to be that Jaunty remember all these things like the original when they're rhyming George
Floyd with Metroid? Which does this mean we get I don't know, like
young Blood doing the same thing in another thirty years. Yeah, we're all
underwater and young Blood is telling us about how our fucking houses got swept away
by the great flood. Brilliant. Yeah, not advisable, melted my brain.
Not good. Michael Paul from Volbeat has finally, after years of probably
ruminating on doing so, as launched a death metal band. It's called as
in Hell, which I don't think is a great name, but it's him
with the vocalist of the band More Goth. That's a deep cut for you
out there that shows his true cred when he's going for more Goth polls.
But they've released a song that's called Fall of the Loyal Warriors from an album
that's coming out, where Michael was talking about just his love of band like
Bolt Thrower and Autopsy and Death and all this stuff. So I don't imagine
this is going to, you know, change the game, but it's always
it's always nice to see someone who is on the kind of platform of you
know, Volbeat, legit big band record. Yeah. I just want to
write Bolt Thrower songs. And it's always weird seeing someone like that in a
press shot and not be front front and center. Oh yeah, he's just
hanging out back. There's some guy you've never heard of. Like stood in
front of him. It's real weird, but you've allay, I've ever really
clicked with me other than a couple of shoes, but they've been a band
I admired the whole time. So for me, I think there's yeah,
cool curio because listening to the new song, it seems like it's definitely come
from a place of certainly love and we were like warm admiration for the style.
Yeah. Well, I'm still impressed by a Volbeat doing a Wolf Brigade
cover on their last album, so they're always in my good books. From
that, I reckon it's time for Mark Tremonty to follow suit and go,
like right, it's time to do that Celtic Frost worship project that I've always
wanted to do, and keep getting that from these guys say yeah, that's
cool. Code Orange have announced in their home area of course of Pittsburgh PETL,
Pennsylvania, they are going to be doing Code's World, a one day,
all day at festival event featuring mad Ball, Vein, two hundred stab
Wounds, Pain of Truth, loads of good stuff, Risk Meat Razor are
on there and they have added Etown Concrete in the like like the last day
or so as well, like, yeah, so good stuff, Yeah,
so very cool. I mean, I'm adagining a kind of Code Orange curated
event just as a vibe we are really cool thing to go to. So
good stuff. They're obviously more on Code Orange on that there as well later
and unfortunately, again sticking in the kind of hardcore front, but really really
worrying news that's come out today just before we've been recording this is Year of
the Knife have been involved last night in a very serious road accident while on
tour in the US. And again evolving situation in terms of exactly where people
are at at the moment, but it certainly sounds like there's you know,
there's some some some broken bones seriously involved, and also at least one member
is in a apparently critical condition. So obviously, I mean, a very
good band by the all accounts I've ever heard, really really good people,
so you know, massive support the Year of the Knife, and here's hoping
that the people who have borne the kind of the brunt of of this this
damage in this situation pull through because it sounds seriously fucking, seriously scary and
seriously awful in terms of the damage that's been done here, so yeah,
absolutely, you know, all thoughts go to the Year of the Knife on
that one. In terms of releases today, we're gonna skip over the questions
because we're doing a big old Fester or whether you will bring that back win
next week's hyper Blast. But releases, obviously, this is like three weeks
worth of releases in here. We're not going to go over every single thing
that I'd be mental. This is kind of the main standout things from each
of the last couple of weeks. Luckily today isn't actually all that busy,
but things we would usually want to shout out from a couple of weeks ago,
which was the sixteenth when we did the download review. King Gizzard and
the Lizard Wizard released another metal album. It's called Petro Dragonic Apocalypse. King
Gizard one those bands where I don't keep up all their releases because he's actually
mental to do so. But they did a few years ago release a kind
of psychedelic thrash metal album, and this seems to be a sort of spiritual
sequel to that. So if you like that band dabbling and thrash metal when
they do that, was there. Yours have Royal funder Rebuilding the Mountain,
who are a fairly long running at this point. Kind of hard rock,
stonery, doom, kind of a lot of cool sounds going on in there.
I've never been a huge I've never quite clicked with them necessarily, but
very respected band at this point. Now imagine a lot of people are probably
really into it. Creeping Death, Boundless Domain. We spoke about the single
from this when it came out, and a corpse grinder on it. Kind
of hardcore influenced death metal. Tsunami Surprise dropped their self titled LP. This
is a hardcore band which we will be talking about later in our outbreak review.
Vulture Industries goes from the past and a Norwegian Prague metal homer is where
the wailer. This is kind of an emo, screamo type band. Elliott,
you're a big fan of this band, excited about the fact that they've
released any One. Well, I didn't even know this was out until it
was already out. It completely passed me, but I became birds from my
favorite releases of I think it was twenty twenty one that came out, and
I've been listening to this over the last couple weeks and yet fucking excellent.
Again, very good. We also have Saturnus and the Storm Within, who
are a kind of very heavy gothic death doom band. They only release albums
like once a decade. I think it's been about eleven years since the last
one, so nice to have another one back from then. And also thy
Catafalque with Alfold that's a fairly you know, well established at this point Hungarian
kind of experimentally black metal project. Jumping back to last week, the one
that I forgot was so soon. I guess it's the fact that Swan's or
at least that album they're beggar. I have Corpse, haven't found the time
to listen to it yet because it's fucking two hours long, which I don't
know if we're going to put it in next month's reviews bag, because I
can't. Sam is mouthing right now? Please no, please no, I
can't imagine going, Sam, what do you make of this two hours?
One's record? Like the last one? Is? Are doing the album club?
I actually quite like. I don't know. That doesn't mean I don't
two hours of it as my next step maybe build up today, I don't
know, but at some point when I have the hours spare, I will
listen to the new Swan's album because well, the mental one about this one
is that the forty three minute song isn't on the vinyl, so it's kind
of a bonus track. Yeah, maybe that means a review of these shorter
one hours twenty minute version of a Swan's The Beggar Trophy, I's Suicide and
Sunshine. That's more sort of easy breezy for people. Also Mental Cruelty with
Zwylicht. We reviewed this band a couple of years ago. There are kind
of one the newer school of symphonic deathcore bands in Hardcourt. Military Gun released
an album called Life under the Gun. Another band we will be talking about
in a little bit, but that album seems like it's going down very very
well with people over back in the UK. We've got Burner and it all
returns to Nothing and an extreme metal shooter. Norwegian black metal store wats at
this point at release now called hell Veggar Zaster has released. I think this
album's like an hour and forty minutes long as well inevitably dark. It's called
it's kind of a mixture of you know, very low fi us black metal
and kind of blue grass, the two areas that he's been involved with.
There's been some discourse over the last a few days about Zaster and the fact
that people are realizing what most of us are know for a long time,
which is a fucking weirdo. But the album is what it is. Also
one that I'm quite a scited about. A band called Everny Pendant have very
just out of nowhere surprise dropped their album. This is one of the better
bands at the moment in the kind of raw underground black metal school. If
you like lamp a Murmur and stuff like that. Everny Pendant are another band
I would go maybe you know a next step in something like that. And
also a Canadian band are quite a lot like a lot called Wilt Will He
Stay? I think it's class as an EP or a mini album called Hugan
that's kind of a sort of mixture of sort of like death doom and black
metal, bits of agaloc, woods of Eat Pray, stuff like that.
And then finally onto today's releases, which again not loads today, so it's
a nice little catch up time to go and listen to two hours of Swans
or whatever you want to do, but Loama Creator all least an album called
Last who are a kind of slightly experimentally hardcore band. We were talking about
them when we're doing our Oastbreaker special not long ago. Was kind of one
of an influencer going in there. And then to most of today is death
metal for some reason. There's Static Abyss Aborted from Reality, which is crushed
from autopsies, like other project that he's just launched up, and he's this
is like his second album in as many years. I think as a classgow
band called Coffin Mulch, which is the great name I've seen around a fair
bit. But they've got an arm called spectral Intercession and another great name Grotesqueries
Vile Crematory, and then the other things. I'm all sort of like Droney
experimental area of heaviness, carnate a back with an arm called to be cruel
and divide and dissolve with systemic. And now we are going to talk all
about the time that we had at this year's Outbreak Festival. Sam. Last
year we had a lowdown from you about Outbreak Festival and it was a major,
major year for them. It suddenly leapt up from being a kind of
UK hardcore institution that had been quietly trucking along for like a decade doing a
great thing for that community, but suddenly being one of the biggest events in
their heavy music calendar full stop. I felt like last year, Yeah,
last year was a like again, it's kind of been building up to last
year because of delays and COVID all that, so they feel like they basically,
oh that of course, just built up a lineup that was kind of
like, this is what is happening in hardcorevent. We're getting all of the
most exciting things, We're putting on the biggest age we can and we're still
bringing you that no barrier hardcore experience and it just it really feel like a
grand event that people sneer that, but then when you actually got there,
I was kind of like, shit, there's never been anything like this in
the UK. Yeah, there was all that stuff about signing your mosh waiver
to get your your golden wristband, your license to mash, your license to
stage divals, and I think this is kind of like hardcore law now of
what felt like again, like a UK hardcore festival leveling up into a space
where people were like whoa, this is actually this is pretty serious. Six
thousand capacity, like, you know, six thousand moshes in one room,
like big deal. And the fact that this year they didn't just repeat that,
they didn't just go, oh yeah, a really good thing going,
they went even bigger. You can't fault them for boldness, right Like they'd
already made one of the biggest hardcore events on the planet last year in the
Bowls Exhibition Center, a no barrier show of that size with the necessary waivers
and etc. To like almost double the size of that again to a ten
thousand capacity room and at the same time majorly shake up the lineup and what
kind of things you were going to see at an Outbreak in order to achieve
that. And you know, we've we've seen festivals in recent years kind of
collapse or pay the price when they swing two bold too soon. And there
were certain reactions online around doubters of the either the scale of the event or
what the policy they had with the lineup, those kind of things going into
it. Outbreak twenty twenty three became very intriguing as a test, right like,
it's a kind of it was like an experimental idea, Can this be
pulled off at this size with this genre mixed lineup. I mean, it
was one of those things you like, you must after houses of the last
words, you do mts go well, you know, they'll just go safe
bet again, befall the sang hardcore staff. But there was kind of that
because lastly there was that intrigue of can they pull off a hardcore shore on
this scale? And this was kind of like, well, now can they
broaden out the lineup and these these new these different acts I've pulled in,
are people going to go through it? Or is it going to be you
know, really well attendive for the hardcore bands and then emptiness for anything that
isn't your typical Outbreak fair. So there was a curiosity again going in.
Yeah, so I myself, I really wanted to see how it happened this
time. There were some big draws that very much drew me to it.
I wanted to go last year, but I didn't make it happen, so
I was happy to join you this time Outbreak Festival. The last time I
had gone to Outbreak Festival is Outbreak twenty and eighteen, which was when it
still took place in the Canal Mills in Leeds in a kind of a sort
of warehouse situation, and I felt very much like, you know, I
think it was Jesus Peace played that year, and I believe Aaron from the
stage said, this year was like last time we played Outbreak Festival, it
didn't look like this, and that was how I felt as well. It
was like, this is such a completely different it might as well be a
different event to the one I went to five years ago, you said,
But then I imagine there will be to you watching like oh, this still
feels like oh yeah again when you're watching at stage and the bodies are flying
yeah, for the likes of Tsunami or Speed, even though these are newer
bands have come along, you get that sense of like, it's impressive that
they can still translate that that hardcore intimacy in a room that size is like
as an impressive feel absolutely what I meant. It was like the you know,
the Holy Ship we get in Kansas Anymore type feel. It was like
proper it was the event that I, you know, i'd been to.
And again the type of bands, largely in the kind of reaction they got
largely was in recognizable hardcore event. But the fact that it had leveled up
the way it had in those five years. I mean even from last year,
it sounds like it was a sizeable, you know, different thing going
on. In terms of the venue itself, it's the Depot Mayfield in Manchester,
right opposite Manchester Piccadilly Station. I thought the venue itself was a really
great space for for this. Again, even having not gone to the BC
last year, I've been to the BC at Damnation and again I think that's
a really cool venue for what damnation I've going on. But I really seeing
this huge space that this place was. That main room is massive, because
it was when I came in and it looked like actually the the the front
space the Golden Rist podcast looked smaller weirdly than last year because it was kind
of like was alstale. It felt wider, but it actually wasn't. It
was just because the room occupied was so much bigger that having this kind of
like front space looked. The Golden wristbound space alone is like the size of
the venue I went to in twenty eighteen to see Outbreak Once upon a Time
and particularly I obviously the tiered stage that they had really really played its played
its role in terms of people constantly you know, diving from that stage,
moving across it and so on. But in a way where no one's stamping
on any guitar pedals, no equipment is getting ticking a mic stand and snapping
it, yeah, getting sucked up whatever. Really it feels like a really
good place to have outbreak festival. Like I know, they they upgraded from
the Beat, so I would like it now to sort of stay where it
is. I think it, Like I say, next next year is books
for defamation again. They like there were definitely you know, there were I
think a number of improvements that were made from moving to this venue, the
infamous kind of like no one could get anything to eat last year dinner.
I think I qued five minutes of food. Like food stores were plentiful.
There was nice outdoor spaces. There was one particular issue which we will get
onto when it comes to sun. Yeah, it will put a pin in
that and come back round to that because I mean we can't spoil like you
know, the like actual thing of like how bad it got until the sun.
Yeah, But I mean again, I liked the venue itself. There
was the kind of no reentry policy which a couple of people have sort of,
you know, raised annoyances about I didn't really have a problem with it,
Like I saw people kind of got wending, like, well, I've
got stuck in paying for overpriced food and drink some like. But isn't that
every festival technically, Yeah, I know. It's like you can bring in
a meal deal, you know, and it's like they weren't searching you and
conflicuenting food. So again, buy a meal deal before you go in.
I had like a couple of cereal bars in my pocket before I went in,
that kind of thing. And the food it was normal priced for festival
food, right, and it was really good. It was some of the
best festival food I've had, I'll be honest, Lighters, much as it
was, it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't. Yeah, they weren't ripping
you off compared to other festivals. Yeah. You can even go get a
free haircut if you were booked in the appropriate appointment. And again, the
stage itself like the gott imagine. I mean, obviously some of us were
on that stage. We weren't really taking the time to get good views from
it, right, We were jumping from one side or the other. But
the view from the stage looking out over that room must be huge, and
if you're in one of those bands, it must be like, whoa this
is? I mean, therese are humors. You could see some of the
bands actually in a little bit of disbelief about what they're saying. Yeah,
and also give credit to Outbreak as well. They responded to feedback very quickly,
because again, there are things about it that you hope they address next
years in terms of maybe moving certain things or whatever. But we you've noticed
again on the second day of the event, all of a sudden, loads
of chairs are popped out that weren't there on the first daid because first day
people gone, there's nowhere to sit. And the very next morning shiploads of
chairs that appeared merch queue actually organized and so they were controlling the flow of
people going into the merch space. Like I was like, I'm glad to
see they are responding and kind of like picking up on complaints. So it
feels like they are taking it seriously. They're not, you know, just
about light yeah, but like yeah, yeah, we're listening and doing that.
So while there are things about Outbreak of this year that will have become
kind of infamous. Compared to the last few weeks of festivals that we've spoken
about and some of the very serious organizational errors that were going on that were,
you know, crippling people's ability to enjoy the weekend at all, Outbreak
actually seemed pretty well put together. I was saying that this is the first
they had proper like disabled viewing platforms that seemed to actually be quite reasonably space.
I know that they weren't loads people, but I saw a couple of
people in wheelchairs around the weekend and like them getting into an actual viewing space.
I was like, yeah, good, like that. That's nicely that
that they've taken down board this year as well. Yeah, Friday, we're
going to go through all of our that we saw, probably not in the
most intensive detail for every one of them, but I mean, for a
start, as a hardcore fest, so so many bands were playing like twenty
minute sets, which I still find of nice in refreshing. You didn't have
too long to get bored of any one particular band. It was. It
would come and it'd hit you, and then just as quickly it'd be often
about a cool nice I enjoyed that onto something else but Friday. The first
band who opened up the main stage is Pest Control, who are a UK
crossover thrash band who we've mentioned a couple times. We're kind of popping up
on a lot of different bills. They're doing the rounds at the moment.
They are one of the most kind of like hard working. They are grinding
out shows and they're getting better every time as well. I saw him a
couple of months ago. See what I enjoyed about Pest Control here compared to
again, you saw them with Creator, me and Elliot I missed the Creator.
I saw them with Scowl. Oh right, okay, well they were
on The Creator as well. Yeah, but me and Elliot saw them.
We were right. But compared to those where it was like, you know,
small band, didn't really know who they were, just to you know,
a support slot, impress us type affair. When they opened the main
stage, Outbreak. There's something about Outbreak that again, one of the concerns
people had with it is like it's it's UK hardcore's biggest event. We want
to see UK bands on the bill, and if you overstuff the bill with
lots of you know, international acts and then you start piling on the big
hip hop hats and all this kind of thing is like where's the room for
the UK hardcore bands at the UK Hardcore Festival and so on. But there
was something about pest Control coming on opening the main stage that felt like as
opposed to that just nothing you know, against impress or support slot. It
was like people are turned up four pest Control with this real like homegrown grassroots
support and see the people who had clearly been into pest Control getting to see
them play on that stage as the first band on. I mean, like
again, the pink pest Control cap was like an item you saw around site.
So it was like again, a very new band, a small band.
I've only heard of them in the last few months, but they opened
the main stage and it was like fuck, yeah, people are here for
this UK band, their hometown again, you know, growth for growth affair,
and people were going for it. Yeah. I mean like I always
said that they were really made good picks opening the main stage each day,
which meant there was always a crowd there for the opening band, and that's
when they want to kill all the festal being a UK band that people were
excited about, and you see the opening bands of fest for sometimes and you
know it's it's a very polite reception. Nothing polite about the reception to a
pest control here. People were wasting no time getting on stage. It was
like five minutes in and I've seen two card wheels across the stage. Yeah,
full on. Everyone was so in on it from the moment, going
like they're just a really because you know, I'm not so familiar with the
songs yet, but if you just want you to know, like hardcore teens,
frash metal with the beat downs and just loads of riffs, loads of
attitude, easy shaped metal guitars, they're all holding yeah, and they're all
like sunglasses and that they are living their eighties fresh fantasy on stage. Pets
control. But it's really infectious and that that energy went into the crowd and
it made it just a really fun opening half hour to the debt to the
whole festival. Yeah, and again the fact that people turned up for this
newer band and really were like, you know, UK hardcore event, let's
go, let's celebrate our minds and everything. I thought it set a really
good precedent for the rest of the weekend. Next up was one of those
imported acts and it's one who are particularly kind of buzzy at the moment,
mentioned them before releasing their album. Not long before the festival, Tsunami came
on the main stage, and Tsunami are, like I said, they're one
of them. They remind me of before Gultch released their album and just kind
of from hardcore circles, all you heard was like Gulch Goltz, Gulch golt
Gults, but the rest of us didn't necessarily have like a lot to go
on. Just yeah, that's what the word around Tsunami has kind of felt
like. And when they came out, it's almost like Trey's Core, right,
because they turn off and it's just like Tsunami style, motherfucker Triple B
style. It's like, if you don't know their record label, it is
Triple but it's like, what what have you just said to me? Like
what the fuck? He just like whipping out all of these like just phrases.
And I thought, more than it is particularly great musically, because I've
listened to the record, it's, you know, fifteen minutes of just fight
yeah whatever. But more than it is particularly accomplished musically, it's just very
aggressive, isn't it really I like that Tsunami record quite a lot because I
again, I can go for a seventeen minute hard yeah, like I'll never
tire of that because it's just you know, music that just brings joy to
me. But there is something. Yeah, it's so aggro and just like
wants to fight you at any moment, Like it's about Tsunami. It's not
original, not clever, but when they just come on and you've got this
massive Bruce Willis backdrop, Yeah, that was brilliant. Their backdrop was rather
than any band thing or anything, it was just a it was like an
energy drink advert, wasn't it. It was like Bruce Willis is see looming
face over them holding a few cans of energy drink, and the Bruce Willis
backdrop became quite an iconic image of Outbreak this year. Yeah, everyone just
I think it could have again it warmed them to people might be familiar,
but really, like we're gonna talk about a lot of sets that were very
similar to what Tsunami delivered here, Like this was kind of like the bread
and butter for a lot of bands, and there are there are bands who
are in the similar kind of new wave of hardcore that are doing more interesting
creative things in Tsunami, but in terms of just infectious Larry Fight music,
agro violent hardcore that's just like bursting with energy at every second. I just
found it such an enjoyable set. Were they the band with the pig squeal
bit? Was that them? I can't remember what band it was who just
suddenly started pig squealing. It was then more Speed, wasn't it. It
was one of those two, I think, right was Tsunami And then we
just was like, ah, yeah, yeah, that was good. So
just punching all over the stage. Um one of the biggest sort of I
guess musical deviations of at least again his first run of bands. Outbreak was
one of the ones that really caught my ear, which is an't called Fleshwater,
who contain a lot of members of Vein. They're part of that kind
of dot FM family of kind of Vein related projects that they've sort of branded
themselves as. And before I tweaked that, I was listening to again,
I was listening to like an Outbreak playlist before going to the event, just
checking out what was going on, and I thought, oh, this sounds
a bit like some of the kind of alternative rock Vein bits, like when
they did that EP between the albums and stuff like that, and then it
made an awful lot of sense. I was like, Ah, that's why,
because it's the guys from Vain. And then when you watch them on
stage and you see how they're playing shoe gays and they're still a like attacking
those of a similar fosity, like you go, oh, yeah, course
this is Vain doing shoega I think it's like Vein's frontman plays guitar and does
vocals on some of the songs. They also have another singer who really took
over as the set went on and kind of gave it her own kind of
characteristic. I liked flesh Water quite a lot. I think I really enjoyed.
Yeah, I think the album. Listening to the album and it's very
good. Um and there's again it's that alternative rock, but with that like
dirgy heaviness to her that it's not the kind of float away type shoegay.
There's a real like dirt under the fingernails type feel that you get with the
Vein related projects. Yeah, it's got a sort of jagging this and in
intensity along with the kind of like nicer shoe like melodic shoegaze moments, and
it's Merissa Shoa, I think is the vocalist. She's got that of just
like real nineties coolness sort of thing. Yeah. I think there's a York
cover on the album that they opened with. I think, um so like
and it's funny like for a shoecase set. They powered through this so quickly
they played. I timed it. They played for seventeen minutes. It was
like proper in and out hardcore set that with these big, kind of dirgy
melodic rock songs. Yeah, and I think I actually made them sound because
I think some of the shoegaze bands, which is Gonna I enjoyed, but
felt a little bit like they kind of got a bit washy at times.
Narrow Heads were going to for example on the Saturday, but Fleshwater just being
so just like in and out, really high energy and really punchy made them
like an interesting kind of spin on what the huge stuff was. Yeah.
Again, a few people said that the sound wasn't perfect for them, but
I think the overall vibe landed pretty well and they have got some really good
songs on that album. Kurt Blow was watching from the side of the stage,
and he was very praiseworthy on social media afterwards, So maybe that's a
relationship can be built there. I don't know, but Flash of Water I
was impressed by. I thought was cool. Went over to the second stage
and caught a bit of a band called C four, which, again when
I was looking at the bands prior to the event, I was in dear
to them by the fact that one of their top songs is called Crush Your
Enemies, which made just think about kind of cone in the barbarian like manner
war style, you know, heavy metal. This is like obviously it was
hardcore, but it had like a power violence edge of really really short songs,
and that particularly came to its funniest point when they went we have one
more song. That was it. Also the singer did an incredible like elbow
drop into the crowd that made both of you like fear, made both of
us WHOA. That was a hell of them. Yeah, they had like
a real nasty, like violent weight to them, And I said that power
bands like the burst of songs while still having the against the dirty and low
end kind of heaviness. I thought, see four were. What we caught
them was was impressed. Yeah. I think we caught like six or seven
minutes or something, but that was about ten songs, so probably about half
of their sets. So there you go, Koyo. We're up next on
the main stage. I stuck around at the second stage to watch a demonstration
of power. Were there with me with a demosition of power. I ran
off to have a look around merch, get food, and then I came
back and caught most of demonstration of power. Okay, Glasgow, Glasgow,
Glasgow, I mean you can call it, could say Glasgow hardcore band Again.
People talking about wanting to see UK hardcore bands on the bill and so
on. So all the huge crowd on that second stage. Yeah, and
again for a band from from that kind of region, big crowds, and
I think again you could see something like Outbreak Festival is like an opportunity for
bands from kind of all of these different corners of the UK, like you
had like Rough Justice as well from Sheffield, all kind of coming to this
space and showing sort of you know, we're here, what can we do?
How can we represent you know again our home scene and so on,
and you know, for people who are from where they are. It's almost
like a historic thing seeing your local band playing to a huge outbreak crowd like
that. Again, I know a few people who are involved with the Glasgow
hardcore scene and they're very intense about it, like Glasgow hardcore means like everything
to them life. So I'm sure this was very very exciting to see that
going on. Yeah, I was impressed by demision of the Power. Again,
not anything particularly unique about them, but they had a real presence the
energy from the room. They were sort of feeding off it way to it
mean like I mean, there was a real conviction to the performance and again
making the most of the opportunity that made it more memorable than it might perhaps.
Yeah, there were a couple of bands this weekend, most notably These
and Pain of Truth, who I didn't see but you did and we'll talk
about it later, but listening to them put it at the forefront of my
mind how much Early Hate Breed is still like a huge influence on a lot
of new hardcore bands, because a lot of it just sounds like satisfaction is
the death of desire still, Yeah, Because I mean, like, if
you want to sell it anything hardcore, that's a good things are going to
draw from, Let's be honest. But yeah, that's what mean so again,
not particularly as all, but the power, the way, the aggression,
the intensity is there. So channel that in a room of people who
are really into it and like it's hard not to get swept up. Yeah,
no pressure back on the main stage, which I had kind of forgotten
that they existed, but Mark made me listen to them a little while ago.
But no pressure. It's Parker Cannon from the story so far essentially doing
a Salem. It's him having a project where he does very short, fast,
heavier versions of essentially what he normally does anyway, or you used to
do with the story so far anyway. Yeah, let's so with the newer
Brit rock influence. But that's what I'm saying. It's, you know,
full on just pacy pop punk, none of the britpop stuff or whatever on
record. Because I've gone back to it since seeing it again, it falls
into that kind of like modern pop punk my asthma to me of like slightly
sickly sounds and not a lot of it really sticking. But here in the
flesh at a full on rowdy punk events, I can't believe how many favors
this did it and how like energetic and uh you know, wrapping you up
in it. This this no pressure set was It was like the atmosphere and
the intensity of the response. I couldn't believe how many people like really knew
the songs and we're like full on, like a louder response than I imagine
the story so far. I have got one at certain show as if they're
at a festival and a support slot or whatever, like people were fucking there.
It reminds me of that when I saw the story so far really early
on, and how and the kind of really rabid, fired up reaction they
got. And yeah, like for you know, probably the least heavy band
on the main stage so far, being the one that is purely relying on
like pop punk melodies, even if the engine is a bit more hardcore tinged
in that kind of like aggression and pace, but they are you know,
big singles. People were going for that mic and it was it was nice
to see Parker Canon kind of feed off that energy. So who can subdom
to be a bit stand off? Yeah, there were loads of people around
it on stage and he wasn't kicking them off yeah, like, you know,
after years of building a reputation of being, you know, a bit
of an agro dick on stage. I think has always been a bit more
standoffish and reserved, but he seemed to really thrive off of the people flocking
around him trying to get the mic, the constant stage dives like because he
like were like, yeah, all the finger guns out. It was I
I had a lot of fun watching No Pressure. Yeah, it was a
very energetic showing. And that was followed by Military Gun, where we had
like a good run here of kind of melodic pun melodic single loong type stuff.
A military Gun, which again I had only heard of fairly recently.
Apparently it's the guy from Regional Justice Center who we reviewed on the show.
I didn't know that. I didn't know that reasonal Just Center had even gone
on hiatus, which is a shame because in terms of musically, I probably
prefer that one. It's more sort of my speed of yeah, literal speed,
but Military Gun it's kind of laid back, feel good, like rock
influenced. There's the opening track or the album they just released that we mentioned,
the rething, which is literally ACD literally an ACDC riff and then he
goes on it, which is always fun, but like really it's another one
that on record might kind of pass me by a little bit. But for
a project that's only been around like two or three years, I learned quite
quickly that Outbreak is a place where very new and up and coming bands will
get fucking insane like homecoming reactions, where these like pretty new songs people there
will clearly know and fucking love them. Well, these are the first of
the bands that played the festival last year, either you know, low on
the second stage opening it, or on opening like the main stage last year,
or playing the second days. I saw Military Gun at last Festive one.
I really enjoyed them. This was me literally discovering them last year at
Outbreak and they were pulled a respectable crowd on that second stage. And this
year, you know, pulling a pretty decently sized guard who were really into
on the main stage. You could kind of see the bands who Outbreak kind
of gone. You know, yep, these bands they made in Preston,
lat year, Let's get them back and give them a bigger platform. Even
there's something really brilliantout Military Gun and this kind of like Mitchell kind of laid
back, kind of slacker vibes at times, but having just enough weight and
hardcore DNA in there to stop it from ever feeling too too sleepy. So
it gets like trace this line between being relaxed and chill was having a bit
of guts to it, and every now and then, whether you get into
a big riff or something like, it does hit hard when it needs to.
That Pressure Cooker song has been stuck in my head since. I've got
to say that Pressure Cooker guy run in and people were like bouncing for that.
That was really super bouncy. It's so bouncing their music. Yeah,
and that went into one step closer who more kind of traditional when you would
imagine like melodic hardcore. It's not the easygoing thing of military gun or ever,
but very pacy. Roby have comeback kid a little bit like there's that
same kind of like high pace but with melody and the guitars and that kind
of like urgency in the bogus. I think they're pretty decent the emotional drive
to Yeah, I've all these. I think this is the first one.
Other sounds not doing them many favors. These were the first one that I
really kind of picked up on maybe the sound muting the packed of it a
little bit. But I did enjoy this set again like more trusoologic hardcore,
super energetic. Again, I could see why they've gone from second stage to
decent way up the main stage because really passionate reaction. And I can tell
why some people again because with a lot of these logic hardcore bands, people
can from quite strong attachments to them, and I can see why again for
a lot of people one step close to have kind of become that bad.
Yeah, I think again that they got a good response and they will clearly
look back on the show very fondly. I think for me my energy was
slightly dwindling from just like seeing a load of hardcore bands in a row.
But I didn't I thought they're good, and the guitarists at the end did.
Like the hugest leap from one of the amps, I generally thought I
was worried about him breaking his foot or something. But I think after this
we did kind of we needed a bit of a guess, a reset.
You went to see paying the truth if I mentioned earlier, Yes, yes,
apparently from of those bands they've been around a few times just in it
and I've kept missing them and that they are, you know, they are
New York hardcore they like Yeah, No Surprise was the one that really sounded
like satisfaction death to start hate bad to me, just with that kind of
New York street level like attitude to it as well, and no supplies they
come at and it again, it was nothing original to the set like this
is you know, this is your packed out second stage, everyone going mental,
violent, pit bodies plane everywhere, people coming on, their mates come
on from side stage to grab the mic, which did possibly give me my
highlight of the entire festival, but the moment. If there's one thing again
who I was seeing, I'm glad I saw them. But if there's one
thing I missed this weekend that I well, I really gott it. I
missed who you went to see, But I'm glad I got to witness this
and like the videos on my Twitter if anyone is curious about like has not
seen yet. But Colin Young who was over for Outbreak doing the hard Law
podcast. Yeah, but Colling Young of God's hate twitching tongues nail, isn't
that he was, No, it's his brother Taylor was in nails. Sorry
but God said, you know you kind of hardcore store war like massive dude.
He comes on, does his guest spot and then when he finishes,
starts mushing on stage like putting in the fish. The spin kicks and this
really, this poor guy got murdered, like like you literally you see on
the video where he kind of clocks him and then as he walking basically gives
him another kick and you just see him just like completely just this. This
guy falls n eighty degrees Like it was fucking. I watched that video because
we were staying at the same place and we go back after the day and
just watch the video or repeat for a while, and it got funnier every
time of this guy just fully like goes sent to the shadow it's the coling
young and puts his arms in the air like he scored a goal. It's
fucking. The other one is that sort is another guy comes and he literally
just kicks him onto the guy like this is Sparta like kick and he's just
going launched onto the crowd. Yeah, man, don't mess for the record
of the guy you got kicked to the ground in the video, you see
him get up and he the other day and he kind of hugs Colin on
the way. You got me, man, you got I think like there
were clearly no bad vibes there, but it was just I was dying with
Dad but not Overshadow Paint of Tooth were just really fucking good hardcore. Again,
Like I think it was just the perfect setting to see them in where
again they pulled his huge cup because it was quite like you can kind of
tell everyone who wanted to mosh goes over to the second stage at that point,
and everyone wants to sing along stuck at the main stage, and so
you had the unice options. I got in that this was the first band.
I was like, I'm gonna get in the pit a little bit,
and I was like, oh, it's a bit rough even for me,
you know, hang on the periphery of the pit and just enjoy the vibe.
But yeah, just really violent, angry New York hard coren But for
that video of Colin Colin kicking that guy to the ground and go around on
Twitter and stuff afterwards, was like, again, it's one of was like,
yeah, we're at the hardcore fest down he quote me, it was
like, oh, put in a full day's work into just this one song
every time. Yeah, Highviz is where I was who I was seeing to
not witness this this murder take place. And again I actually thought this was
going to be something of a come down because I hadn't listened to loads of
High Vis and the bits I heard, I assumed it was going to be
one of those slightly more low key atmospheric sets because there's a kind of like
post punk edge to their material that's got these kind of like low fi Spindley
guitars and stuff. I thought this was going to be one of those slightly
kind of alternative bookings that just fits in at someone like like a hard core
fest, but wouldn't be a hard core set itself. Instead, this was,
honest to god, one of the loudest, most euphoric bits of the
whole festival. Like, I wasn't expecting the energy to go up for High
Vis essentially, but my god, it did. Had a lot to take
in at first because they come on stage and first of all, guitarist is
wearing a Sarcophago shirt, which is such a fucking sweet pick for a guy
at a hardcore fest. Well, I was like yo, and then the
singer starts talking and he is incredibly Scouse, so I was like, ah,
a local, you know, tough crowds I hardly know. Yeah,
But and then like I'm looking around me like oh okay, gauging what's happening
here, they launched into a cover of Morning Glory by Oasis, which is
probably my favorite Oasis song. With that nearly a bit of time to wake
up to a Manchester crowd, and the energy didn't drop from there, and
that thing that I was taking about people really taking too and celebrating new acts.
The songs from the High Vias album that came out last year unbelievably huge
that day, Like it was fucking super super enthusiastic, and again that it's
very UK, very kind of you know, regional working class identities, kind
of britpop mea meets like post punk kind of influenced, but live there's this
really hard core stage presence that comes out and the response from the crowd,
and there was a bit when the singer got like borderline tackled into the front
row of the crowd by about fifteen people all grabbing the mic at once.
But this it felt like a kingmaking set. Honestly, like I am It's
one of the sets I've seen the most people rave about from the Friday in
particular, probably only one set to come that was raved about. Yeah,
but like I am so so in on hivis after seeing that, and like
I want to see where they go next, because it had this real thing
of again that like homegrown heroes getting to play this unbelievably huge room and it
felt like everybody in it was there for them and to sing those songs.
It was like it was one of the best bits of the weekend. And
I didn't really know any of their songs at the beginning of it. Yeah,
like there were about I quite like what I've heard on record, but
I wasn't like desperate seeing which I was. I'll go to paying the truth.
I'll catch They're playing London fairly soon anyway. I might get a ticket
for that after especially how you've said about it. But from all reports it
just sounds like this was a total victory and I'm genuinely gladed to miss it.
Yeah, they were brilliant again if you can see them live, if
you haven't seen them live yet, really like I want to catch them again
like that. I've been listening to the record, because again those songs were
if you recommendation, it was like total. It was a bit of that
I needed to take me through the rest of the day. But it was
again in terms of the sets that I think have I guess an impact for
a band in a way if like if anyone else like me was in their
room for high years not really knowing them and saw the level of like whoa
that came off that stage and from the people in front of it, There's
gonna be a lot of talk around that. So that was brilliant for them.
It got a bit moody next because it was Defeat. Yeah, first
show in four or five years. I think they've they've been on a bit
of a hiatus. I don't know if this comeback is anything more than just
playing a few live shows. But melodic hardcore, they were part of that,
that wave of twenty tens sort of melodic hardcore bands. You two share
more a ladders view that sort of wave bands that I loved really format formative
for me, and that's one of thing. So I was really excited to
see this and this was one again what I said bye to you and went
right down the front to be right involved in this and they with Bastards,
which is my favorite defeat songs, So of course within seconds I had my
first stage dive of the weekend. Yeah, like the bounds you put them
next to not my thing, but I remembered I quite like defeat her because
they are there is it's not them and modern life is water the two where
they's dark Eye, it's a bit, it's not it's not as annoying as
the ones of those Bantons who are annoying. And they were one of the
only bands across the whole weekend by a sense of drama to them in like
again, their riffs and their arrangements, even bits of them are kind of
a bit like post metal esque, and you know, bits of oath Breaker
and stuff like that you can't hear like going through the kind of lineage of
that. And then when they kind of did go into those bigger moments,
they were kind of better for it because of how it built to them.
And so we get like the Dear Father and there's like, so what are
you god ah do? And it like really it went off. Yeah,
it's like that for me that the opening of a Bastards into No Shame kind
of really shows that where Bastards is one of their pacer just kind of more
hardcore attraction with the and oh you see is that bastard in me? Yeah,
kind of shout along bit, whereas No Shame is it is slow,
it is more dramatic and they're still bit still waiting and they're like and that
to me is that's why I loved it is because they have that sense of
drama to them. And I know that when you compare them and say like
one Step Close, who are probably quite influenced by defeat when you saw of
that again, the hardcore approach they kind of had a sort of scrapping was
defeated. They did bring a sense of drama and grandeur that that did really
make them stand out. The only band who could bring more grandeur and that
sort of thing was Converge following them, but you know, similar kind of
Boston hardcore sort. Yeah. I really enjoyed this, say it got me
stayed so a few times. It was like the first one, I kind
of felt like, oh, that needed to be longer than half an hour
because it felt like, really as they were hitting there kind of grandest moments,
they were done and I was be like, ah, come on,
you needed another ten minutes of that at least. Yeah. Well, as
you say, Boston set up for a Massachusetts Hardcore Evening because the co headliner
or Friday was Bane and Converge and the stuff. That was like the biggest
draw to me outbreak this year. Like if I was going to buy a
day ticket, it would have been for the Saturday. But and you know,
Converge had been quite common around here recently, like just they done a
few shows recently. Yeah, it's just over six months ago. We saw
the Jane Doe set Damnation, but I saw them in London just after.
Yeah. But the closer it got to the festival, more it dawned on
me. I was like, Converge, arguably the greatest hardcore band of all
time at the Hardcore festival playing a no barrier show. Whoa and it was
this was the closest to the front. I went all weekend because I thought,
if there's any band that I want to take advantage of, like seeing
them in a no barrier space, it would be Converge. Again, I
see them a lot, but when will be the next time I see them
in a space like that? And Converge can turn up and be different bands,
right, they could be you know, super drama. When they again
played Jane Doe and you get that title track at the end, it's like,
like nothing you've seen an outbreak festival. They can do the blood Moon
sets and again, like someone asked me, like what was better this or
the Jane Doe set? A Damnation and it's hard to compare them too that
it was almost like different bands, Isn't it that that is the brilliance of
Converge is that for a hardcore band, they are such a range. It's
astonishing again exactly say what was better this or blood Moon? And I'm like
you can't. Yeah, I do know that this one was everything fucking batshit,
violent, fast and exciting about Converge, all turned up in one set.
I was dry at the beginning of this set. By the time they
had finished what like forty minutes later, I looked like I'd come out of
a car wash. It was one of those hair was like, yeah,
it was one of those ones where you could like barely move around of your
own accord because it was just where you got shunted around too. I stage
dives during report you saw and it wasn't out of like a particular like oh
they're playing report you saw it was just that was the one where I found
myself at the front and was like right go and when I landed on the
other side of the stage, there's quite a lot of space around me.
It was great. It was like from one world to another one. This
was the T and M stage dive set by the sounds of it, because
you went this was yeah. I mean because like I was like when the
opening was like just a stupid combination of like it has become Vulture's dark horse
as a one two, and then you get under the rest, which has
a bit more menace to it actually about like I was going to end cuging
bat about and then five songs in song five in their set you Just Gonna
dun I was like Concubine in the middle because like that's a song I've only
ever seen them do they normally like close their sets with it or if you
obviously we were seeing them doing Jane Doe open there or something, yeah,
opening Jane Doe, but just how you're recovering from what you've just experienced whatever
song it was before, and then you hear Concubine, It's like fuck and
that was what I just was, like, like I'm battling my way to
get to that stage and stage diving to Concubine because fucking hell. It's yeah
again, it's one of those like again, it's like I can tick that
off the list. I've stage dived at a converted show. Like that's just
it's just perfect. And they're hell to pay into home Wrecker still and Homewrecker
just some guy from the audience did most of the vocals, so like the
last chorus and Jacob just hanging do it and just like go for it.
Like the Homewrecker was so rowdy, like I was doing Homemaker before, but
there was just a like because of the crowd. That was one where the
crowd really went mental for that, like it was like calling you buy and
hell to pay Home. It's like again, I'm sure a lot of people
have will have seen Converge maybe playing I don't know, the Electric Ballroom or
somewhere like that. Imagine them in an environment where it's possible for someone to
run on stage and just sing the last chorus of home record while the bodies
are flying around you like it was yeah. If you look at the Settlers,
they flavor outbreak the first like ten songs. It is all just the
wildest converge. There is no stops for breath or anything like that. I
swear I missed songs just because of being thrown around in the mayhem and not
quite twigging what song they were playing. I mean, it was like Bannon
came on stage and was said like, we're just gonna put heads in the
place and songs he spoke like again briefly I think it was after Home Records,
but I think it was after Home. Kind of was like, whoa
this is this is pretty crazy, but they they did just you know,
power through. So when they when they hit worms or feed, rats will
feast, and this was like this is the Clozi and this this is them
bringing that one moment of serious drama to the set, which I was like,
that's one of my favorite convert songs, like I fucking it's my favorite
song of facts to fall like and it's so heavy but it's menacing and slow,
and I was like, cool, that's it. I'm happy with them
ending on. You thought that would be the end and it would be like
wow, but then they've got like five minutes on the clock or something,
and Bannon goes like, we we kind of agreed. Kurt Blue said it
was this one like Imber I was one of us. We haven't rehearsed this
song. Yeah, they say like we this is a song we kind of
collectively just agreed to not rehearse about fifteen years ago. So you were sorry
if this doesn't work. And again after the festival, Ben Coller tweetly was
like, outbreak. If you were there for this, I'm so sorry.
That was a shit show. No one noticed, right because when they go
we haven't heard this song in the fifteen years, but we whip it out
for special occasions. This song is called the Saddest Day, it was like,
oh fucking god, because this was the event moment in this Yeah,
because we'd be like joking. It was like, you know, Converge playing
a no barrier set at a hardcore festival, wouldn't like again, like a
pipe dream, wouldn't it be amazing if they whipped out some like pre Jane
Doe prop petitioningly the Empty Sky yea, And like the Saddest Day is like
the it's like the hallmarks. It's like you know, the forty three percent
burnt or whatever of that kind of ear. It's like, that's like the
standard bearer song for old punch your teeth out Converge, like that metallic hardcore
like pioneering origins to have material from that time, seeing it in a place
like this where there's all of that same like appropriateness, where this is a
festibal people can just jump on each other's heads and they've signed a special waiver
to do so and all that stuff. It's right that we do this song
here, but it's so huge. At the same time, it was like
a full circle moment almost of like ten thousand people, no barrier, the
saddest day we've got, you know, one song on the clock, let's
see what you fuckers can do, and the things again that it may have
been, you know, a bit raggedy, a bit sloppy, but it
felt again just spontaneous and exciting of just kind of like Converge rattling through this
song that is like again of their more primitive early form, the kind of
pinnacle of that. Just what an incredible moment. I'm like, I want
to fucking witness that like that, that's that's put that Converge share as a
kind of like, yeah, that's that's up there. Yeah, that was
really really special, U Bain, I said the co headliner playing over Converge,
which was again I think a lot of people looked at them when you
know the is Baine's name and legacy so large that you would put them over
Converge. It's obviously because of the reunion um the fact that they had come
back not long before this, but it emptied out for Bain and a lot
of people would have watched Bain if they had played after Converge because they would
have been sticking around yeah before Converge even because they would have been sticking around
for that. Instead, this was like a lot of people are getting an
early night here and half of the room's going to stick around to what pain.
Yeah, like it felt like them get the almost felt like a kind
of curtsy thing. I think they said, you know, the organiz ABC
is just a massive fan and wanted them on the lineup, so that I
think he said, like Alba didn't need us, they wouldn't find they could
have had Converge headline this day, but they wanted us on it, and
we really preached that and I'm like, that's fair, you know, and
it is kind of again, of all the final band headliners, considerably the
smallest crowd of the weekend for like the sort of talk about I mean smaller
than like some of the bands that played halfway out the day on the next
ORD day. So it was definitely one for the kind of the die hard
you wanted to stick around and watch Bain. That said, still a really
fun, just rousing end to the Yeah, it was kind of a come
down for us and away because we've been again running around across the stage,
were converted. It was kind of pleasant to be like, okay, and
you know, one last band. I think it was the only time at
the weekend where I thought you could see a generation gap because the way people
had been like singing their fucking lungs out for songs that are like a year
old, like for Hives, a military gun earlier, people absolutely wrecking each
other during Soon Army or so on these newer buzz bands. This was like
elder hardcore, right, This was like, yeah, the people who stuck
around were like, it was curious. Obviously, the people who at the
very front very excited for Bain. So if people had stuck around, but
they weren't fans. It was kind of again quiet sort of respect more than
like people really caring about Bain too heavily. If they have their own current
generation hardcore bands that are like, you know, maybe mean to them what
Bain meant to people twenty years ago, and it's it's interesting. Could Converge
literally are an older band than Baine because Bain span out of Converge with with
Aaron d Albert leaving to form them, But Converge of stayed relevant in a
way that Baine haven't really, So this was like a real legacy booking that
you know, it works, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the
bigger headline event, perhaps because mostly that the younger audience who our outbreak weren't
really there to watch Bain. Yeah. They You're definitely right at that about
them being a kind of like the generational gap where I think a lot the
younger people would just go like, Okay, this band have never really meant
much to me, so either stick on of hang at the back of watch,
or if I really just want to go for a stage dive. But
you could still see though that that said, the people who were down the
front. Even if they were you know, the older sort of the older
statesman of the festival, they were fucking going for it. They were really
really having a good time, and the passion and energy could still be felt.
We were hanging at the back ward was quite sparse, but we could
you could still see like it didn't look like it was kind of like a
crickets no one moving for this ort thing, like everyone everyone was really invested
this. Yeah, it's what It's like the fourth Bane reunion show or something
like that. They've got that song Final Backwards Glance that is very funny when
they play at their reunion shows now because that's like they're you know, they
close of it in it like that was their kind of like leading off their
last album that was kind of like that, you know, we're done,
this is it, like yeah, and now they keep coming out and playing
it. The singer, he wears his very baggy clothes. We were saying,
he looks like it kind of wears wally sort of teenager. But he's
he's definitely a talker. He loves he loves a natter. That guy nice
and passion speech about you know, welcoming the news, very genuine person sharing
ideas and soone as a part of hardcore being very important to him. There
was a hilarious headline about a week before outbreak where some like conservative woman on
Twitter was ranting about the guy from Bane on stage praising trans people and say
you wanted to shit on the American flag or something, and everyone's like,
oh, welcome to hardcore. I will now be watching Bane outbreak. Yeah,
it did that. That did make me a bit more excited to see
Babe, can't hey good lad endearing m I enjoyed chanting along to can We
Start Again? Yeah, of that kind of nineties Massachusetts scene when you've got
Converge and Caven and all this other stuff. Bane are the one who kind
of feel just the most like a hardcore band. Yeah, and that's part.
I think that's part of what you know, does make them appeal even
more to a certain to a certain type of fan where they are the most
kind of strength on the hardcore. But yeah, I do think it was
It was a still a nice nice way to end the day. Yeah,
Saturday was top to bottom, I think the most impressive day. Again,
I think I personally, if I had been buying a day ticket. That's
the day I would have gone for. You could. Obviously a lot of
people have done the same, maybe for more particular acts, but top to
bottom this was there was a lot of stuff to be looking forward to.
Opening was Candy, who hadn't seen before ever since they pulled out of that
one Converged tour. This was my next shot to see them and the last
album they released after that was so intense. But I wondered if it would
be like a full of hell situation where they could have like a kind of
noise element to their stage show and have like again someone doing like a power
electronics type feel. Instead, it was just very bare bones, bare knuckle.
I don't think they decided to have that for you know, outbreak,
just specifically, just I'm sure they could be like they have one normally.
I don't know they played. I've not seen them live, but I was
from from that. I wouldn't be shocked if they could, you know,
when they played maybe like Roadburn or something earlier this year that if they put
a bit more going on there. But this year this didn't have the quite
like electronic like Chaos and Always thing. It was just again played more to
this the hardcore punk aggression that said, when you're getting into festival, you
know, at like half when they're coming on at half twelve. Again,
perfect band to put a big to pour a lot of people in early on
and get the get the end of again, bash off those cob webs and
the kind of like any hangovers people might have been having if they drunk an
outbreak who knows no straight edge. Yeah, a mixture of again sort of
mortician parts with like really just mangled, fuzzed up bass and though dirty like
you know, slam kind of bits, and then some debats as well.
I will say it was good to hear some some debats from the Outbreak main
stage. There's not too much stuff like that there. I was speaking to
one of my hardcore pals of mine who very endearingly refer to them as Thinking
Man's Ship, and it was like, you watched that and it was it
was really really not that. It was one of the heavier things on the
mainstage. For sure, I found it to be a bit more one dimensional
than i'd hoped. Where again, if on record they're in league with the
likes of Full and Full of Hell and Nails and stuff like that, it
did come across as being like quite a long way behind them, when again
I scene full of how that Damnation like six months before that was a really
fucking great, exciting, powerful thing. It's like you've got outbreak. You
might seem a little bit different, but in the grand scheme of things,
that's kind of what you're competing with. I don't think it was there,
but it was definitely a obnoxious start. I was fine with this being you're
obnoxious, Just jump off the stage, throw your arms around, get violent
start to the Yeah. Briefly wander over to the second stage to watch a
bit of a band called Middleman, who, again, in my little brief
sort of checking out of what was on the bill beforehand, came across as
having some kind of like slightly eighties hardcore vibes to me, with that kind
of you know, low file you sort of tinniness in a way, which
I'm quite fond of seeing it. It came across a bit more kind of
alternative than that with like ky I was thinking that the like like jangly guitars
and some warm bass, Yeah, minor threat is really what I wanted out
of it. It was kind of a bit it was a bit jauntier and
flimsier than that. Yeah, I thought they were. I thought they were
Okay, you know, I'm guessing they're quite a new band. They didn't
pull the biggest, most invested crowd, but they gave it some and I
feel like they can welcome some of those like get a bit more intense and
maybe a bit less kind of like washy. They could be on something pretty
cool. Yeah, And then we went back to the main stage for Narrowhead,
whose album we reviewed earlier this year. One of the big kind of
alternative rock releases that you would absolutely want to see at a place light outbreak
as well. You want a few of those bands to break that up.
Thought it sounded thick and robust. I think if they can really work on
getting like the strongest set of songs that they can, because some of the
highlights really stood out, like I hadn't yet, I hadn't listened to them
since we did that album in like February, but there were a couple off
it which we're like, oh, yeah, this song was like, actually
pretty damn big when you're hearing it, Yeah, that's this one. I
mean, is I felt you could you could that they were the band could
like I could read feel the difference between the best songs and the songs I
was kind of like, Okay, this is just because there were others that
were more forgettable versions of like the best versions of the ones that they did.
Yeah, that's that. That was my feeling in our heads. There
was a gap between the quality of their songs which I noticed, which I
didn't necessarily pick up with sort of say flesh Water because Spechi wars so smashing
out. I do quite enjoy that like five minutes of hardcore. Yeah,
there was a bit where they literally they just turned to a hardcore band because
the singer put his guitar down. I was like, right, I'm going
to run around screaming now and do Like there's a couple of heavier songs of
that album, and there was those that they just would up in that kind
of that. That last ten minutes of the sound kind of got the energy
back up. But I think when they when they when they hit it,
I mean, ary head a really good. If they can get that level
of consistency going, they will be great. Live to just get yeah again.
I think the amy just released like it's seeing it there, It's not
like a Kingmaker. You know, it's not like again they're in the same
slot as it's like someone like Basement or whoever when they did like the big
hallmark albums of this kind of music from the last decade. Um, this
isn't at that level, but there are songs that sound quite big, so
keep mining that. And then back again from last year as well was an
an called Scowl, whose stock has very much been rising in the last eighteen
months or so. And this was really good because this was another of those
sets where you could sense like, oh, there's there's something happening here because
people like before they were there, had like turned up to the stage.
The place was pretty rammed out. People were like, it felt like just
in the five minutes or so before they came on stage, there was an
anticipation around Scoal. I mean compared to last year. Last DA they opened
the main stage on the Sunday and they played to like your typical horseshoe crowd,
So it wasn't empty and the bit was going, but it was you
know, there was space, whereas this year I kind of got God,
this is feeling quite packed in. This is going to be this is this
is a lot more people than there was their last year for them, they
were again another one of the bands I went down the front four because I
flip in love scale. They have become one of my, like all the
new wave of hardicle bands, probably my personal favorite. I think there's something
I found really great about this blend of like the nineties grunge and rock with
the real eighties punk kind of thing with the one hardle that they they've actually
got a more ideas going on. And Cat Moss is she's a star,
Like she's got it when she's on, say, you know her neon green
hair that just shines and glows on the stage. And she's somebout these like
white Go Go boots. Yeah, like probably like punk jack, all the
pins and badges on it. Like she's she's She's one of those that I'm
excited see what outfits she's going to pull out on stage because she's got the
looks every time. But like, yeah, they just sounded so ferocious.
They've got you know, from Psychic Dance Routine now, which again I missed
when you kind of being talked about that having that AP is the best one
they've done. I like the album, but adding in you know, actual
choruses and sing alongs, andmost all the hardcore furias given scale that just you
know, the moments in the set way they go into the title tracker or
shot down open the people were singing that beginning with the dude, that's really
cool again because that song is what like four months old or something like that,
And yeah, I agree, there was like, there's loads of good
bands on the bill, right, but there's not a lot of them with
what you would call star power. It doesn't align with hardcore all that often,
and it's not a necessary factor in hardcore to get people going. But
when you know they do a line, you can get something like Scowl,
which had that level of kind of pizzazz to it while being that I think
again, I did anfest right up about this, and I said, it's
like being kind of slipping into an alternate universe where you can watch Garbage in
a space where people are can't wheeling across the stage like it's fucking it's really
really it's a cool vibe going on. And then I agree when they're mixing
like the stuff from the album like fuck Around and find out they're mixing that
with those newer songs that have the melody and so on in it. It
makes for something that isn't just super one dimensional as a set either, and
I think I think it's Opening Night from the EP that has that don't feel
bare. This is part of the plan and that part. There was this
huge stage invasion that didn't stay as the biggest of the day for too long,
but in the moment did a pretty crazy Yeah. No, it was
a real again. I was kind of just like God, I was says
when I could in the pit, when I could two stepping about it like
it was. It was crazy like intense down front and again you could just
feel everyone everywhere to get the mic to scream those those bits and fuck around
and find out or the shut down like the whole course and shot down like
just a really really great set. And there they're because they're one, you
know, they played coach other they are one of those bands who are threatening
to really cross over and do big things for hardcore. So I'm going to
be fully behind it. Yeah, And then Fury had to follow that,
which they did perfectly well in terms of getting hardcore founds to throw down for
them. But I thought Fury were very averaging comparison. I thought they were,
like, it was a fine hardcore set that again probably unfortunate having to
go after Scow, they pulled a much smaller crowd. I think they I
mean, if they got along before Scowl probably would have enjoyed the set bit
more. Like they just felt it was kind of like decent, like cool
moments and there some of the really punky bits quite liked, but didn't really
make much of a lasting impact. Yeah, I think there's there's not a
lot in their material that's really going for them. Like there were a couple
of bits where there's almost like a very slight heavy metal riff, but the
songs were pretty much indistinguishable, Like it didn't sound great. It's just very
hoarse, yowley basic. The singer looks a bit like shlto Copley, the
South African actors in everything. And that was about the biggest takeaway I had.
But when you're an outbreak and you're seeing like techn hardcore bands a day,
the most basic least to offer ones are going to fall to the bottom.
And I thought Fury was that. Yeah, especially again, you've had
Candy, You've had scouged On before them, Fury are not matching those bands
in terms of both ferocity, star power, hit level. They just I
just felt it felt quite rudimentary in the excitings that we just watched and the
really exciting shit that was about. Yeah, background music for people who still
have a bit of energy to expend to run across the stage too, but
also with Fury, we had said before the weekend, how long will it
take for someone on stage to say mosh for the Titanic Sub or something along
those lines, and it fell to Fury to dedicate the first song to the
Titanic Sub, so there you go. Yeah, and then the hip hop
started because they booked the days where Friday was pretty much all hardcore, Saturday
was mostly but it kind of evolved into something more experimental across the day.
And then, as we'll get to, Sunday was the absolute biggest risk where
we were like wondering all weekend what the turnout would be like because there have
been so many hardcore fans on the internet before the event expressing their disappointment with
a Sunday's emphasis on primarily hip hop. But Saturday was almost like a changeover,
and the first one that I saw was very briefly over the second stage
of London artists called Taliable, who came out in this big like roughed balaclava
with like a hole at the top so like big hair do could poke out
of it quite look it was. It was just kind of loud and aggressive,
a pretty small step crowd over on the second stage. The first test
really was on the main stage Armed Hammer, where again this question about the
hip hop acts and so on. We knew there'll be a level of day
ticket havers, so there'd be some people who would turn up who maybe wouldn't
necessarily be the same audience who'd been an outbreak you know, a year before.
But Arm and Hammer as a project, I know there's a rapper called
Billy Woods who's involved with it, who individually has had quite a lot of
kind of acclaimed records, so very respected. Arm and Hammer kind of fell
into something that became more clear to me by the end of Sunday when we'd
seen more different kinds of hip hop outbreak. But it was big, you
know, ominous kind of oppressive bass with a lot of space in between the
beats and everything, not so much that fast like jump up and down beats
as we would see someone like Denzel Curry for example, really deploy. It
was a lot of like throbbing industrial sounds more than it was a great involving
show. Stuck around and saw Mike next, who came out and got a
big cheer. I knew even less about him than I did. Arm and
Hammer very jolly vibes in comparison, he was dancing around at the He spent
ages at the start of just shouting out various people on like grabbing people with
hands and stuff like that. It seemed like it like when you your cool
uncle turns up at a barbecue and everyone's like, hey, it's Mike.
Everyone. Yeah, I mean I missed. I caught arm and Tammer and
I was like, you know, they kind of were like quite a chill,
cool vibe, but was kind of I don't want to again run and
grab food after them. Yeah, they missed Mike. Mike was a bit
boring otherwise, again similarly not much energy in the beats. There was a
couple of single loongs. I don't know who it was, but he brought
out another guy and he to do a couple of songs. Some really kind
of really small guy. I think he said he was from Florida. But
whoever that guy was, people loved him because the energy suddenly really piped up
with people going mad for these like two songs that he was doing. Much
as the energy might have been there, crowds were big for arm and Tamma
and Mike by those things like and you could really see the divide in the
sort of the dark blue or the black outbreak weekends bands and the Orange Day
ticket risk bands that were there on the Saturday, Like, I could see
a lot of people who were kind of turning up for those acts. So
whilst say what's the end he want off the charts, people wanted to say
yeah again this sort of mid Saturday hip hop experiment. It wasn't a failure
because it was fairly well sized crowds, but they weren't going particularly crazy for
it, And like I said, for me, it was contextualized and my
real sort of conclusion there arrived by the end of the weekend when we had
some of the other hip hop we got later the switch back to punk that
we had here. Though, oh my god, the last run of the
five bands on the main stage that ended Saturday. Everyone who thereas said it
it was like the one of the best runs you could hope to see at
a festival, like one of those ones that sticks with you where years later
you will remember that time. Oh yeah, remember when Soul Glow, Jesus
Piece, Machine Girl, Code, Orange and Death Grips ran together as a
streaker Outbreak that one year that was fucking mental as an extended evening. Yeah,
Like as good as large as Outbreak was, there wasn't you know,
like a sustained run of bands that was this, holy shit, everything I'm
watching right now is insane levels of brilliant. Yeah, And that was as
nice that that was sort of the extended best bit of the festival. Because
this is also when Elliott turned up, Hello you're still here. We did
offer him an out and out to say, you don't have to stick around
during this review, but you were here for five bands on Saturday night.
Yeah. It was my first time Outbreak and it was a very last minute
decision, which came almost entirely from me listening to No Love Deep Web in
a car journey and I was like, how fuck? And yeah, I
mean all the stuff you talked about was already fantastic. I missed a bunch
of bands that I really wanted to see on the Saturday, but I had
an accounted for five hour drive and then an hour trip from the airbnb,
and then at that point you do need forty minutes in a pub. And
then I made it before so Glow came on, I broke my phone screen,
which sounds kind of cool, but it was in the queue for the
mosh Waiver thought. I was like, this is a this is a sorry
omen but um, I mean, first band I ever saw an Outbreak,
I think it was always going to be special, but Soul Glow pretty much
the perfect way to start the hardcore show. Yeah yeah, the first time
at a place with no barrier as well, well, at least of that
kind. Yeah, that's just fucking hell. Like So, I mean,
they almost like were the perfect band to kind of represent what Outbreak was this
year because Solo they are that meeting point between the hip hop, the punk,
the hardcore, the experimental stuff. It all kind of converges into into
them as a band, and you could see that in that they pulled a
huge I generally was like Jesus Christ had this many people here to see solgo,
and then was even more taken about by like Jesus Christ. This many
people fucking love Solgo and I've done mental for it. Well, I think
of the you know, the last few years of hardcore, like you know,
say that the twenties so far, I think that album is comfortably one
of the best. You know, you'd have it behind just your glow ons
and sell on in underneath. Yeah, And in terms of bands who have
really kind of made their name in the last couple of years, I think
they're arguably the leaders and the scattershot energy and deliverily of this was just like
delirious. Like the drummer, the pace that he was going out was like
Jesus. Some of those screens cut to him. I was like, God,
he's still. It was like Jesus Christ, keep up with this,
you know. He was just constantly going. And then at the same time,
the singer, I really enjoyed how he was like kind of waltzing around
the stage, almost unfazed, while Carnage unfolded around him. He was almost
like flowing. He was like water, just moving around whatever was happening,
all sort of free, like the drum was. But the three stort of
mamos at the front, like they were just I couldn't keep an eye on
all of them once because they were just so like try to like this big
dude of this AFRO when these like tiny shorts and the big co like looks
mental and say he's like in that way, but he's just again conducting this
cow slamming out these like crazy scattershop punk riffs, or had the vocalist is
gliding around like with his manic he helped vocals. It was just like,
this is this is what punk me, this is what exciting hardcore punk music
should be. And it was just and it just whipped up the crowd into
such a friend Yeah that there was that one song where it all kind of
collapsed and the singer was doing this extended death growl for a good like thirty
forty seconds or something, and it was all like I'm talking guttural. It
reminded me of when I go and watch bands like Spectral Voice and stuff like
that. All of a sudden, that level of was like like full on
just for extend apart and elsewhere. Parts that set were like a DJ set
with just people like dancing and stuff. It was like really like worlds colliding.
Yeah, No that they they felt like such a good choice to stick
on this day because you could see again, you could watch that crowd and
you can see who is hardcore for and through and who is kind of this
is their first hardcore show and they are making the most of this moment,
and like, good on him for you know, really get into somewhere.
But it just it felt like the sort of they capitalized on, you know,
playing two hardcore fans and death Grips fans, and they they really this
was this is one of those sets that is going to make it. Like
Jeremy baum touche More, who his sort of distro like put out one of
their EPs from a couple of years ago. He twittered it was like,
I am absolutely gutted I missed that Sollo set from Outbreak. It looked insane
from the videos, so like immediate within days people were like, holy shit,
Solo Outbreak. It put them like really as one of the exciting things.
I mean, the thing that struck me is they've had so many like
bad Brains comparisons, and I always felt like there was a slightly trite,
shallow assessment, but that gig felt like the way people talk about bad brains
in the eighties, that sort of cooled as fuck, high progressive, really
fun, sort of artie hardcore, frantic, frantic, and for a six
songs set, they basically picked the perfect collection of songs to show off everything
they do. Yeah, I do. I wish they played fun Sucker,
that's the one where I wouldn't That's what I would love to see, the
carns that goes down and that crazy fucking like trumpet punk, because that's my
favorite song on that record. But in terms of songs, I thought it
came at you so quick. It was almost like She's like, like,
where am I. It wasn't so much I can pick up certain songs until
they basically got to gold Champunk because yeah, because then that Who're going to
beat My Ass part? Over and over again. So many people got on
stage that again, if you've seen the photos of this, I shit you
not. We are in no way exaggerating here. It was a water wall.
You could not see the back of the stage, and there were so
many people that there were crowdsurfers on top of the wall of people who were
standing on the stage. And by the end of the song, with again
there repeating Who're going to beat My ass part? The guitarist climbed on top
of the pile of people holding like the mic stand out above it over to
the crowd. It was mad like the other thing pebble was drained last year,
but again now amplify that by bigger room, bigger stage, more people,
so of course there wasn't gonna be. It was like a feudal pyramid
of crowd pleading with Solo to stop, and they were just like, no,
in site more of it. I was like, like again, the
skew on that main stage, absolutely outstanding all weekend, but felt I felt
for them. They were just like Jesus drives when he's going on at this
moment, like absolutely just like like ridiculous spectacle to win this, this many
bodies on stage on top of each other, and the band just reveling in
it, like yeah, you don't get that at four o'clock download, do
you? And I was planning to see them at Download actually, but I'm
really glad I didn't know. I'm really glad my first exposure to both Outbreak
and Solglow was there. It felt like a more sort of appropriate, well
suited first taste kind of the full package, you know, as a way
to start the evening, It's like welcome, How could does it get?
Yeah? And then Jesus Peace, which might be less of a kind of
an individual moment as like particularly again the last like two minutes of that Soul
Glow is at but I actually think I might have enjoyed this even more than
Soul Glow on a musical level because once again metalmaniac check guitarist wearing an archgoat
hoodie which was a study and had like a spike guitar strap. Sam was
impressed that I recognized the Archgoat logo from so far away, but I was
like, believe me, I have a lot of archcoat stuff. He just
needed like a bullet belt and a spiked wristband to look like gall or someone.
It makes sense why Jesus Piece is so brutal, right, and Jesus
Piece are a terrifying live band, Like I really like their albums, but
honestly, it's like something just happens when they play. There is like this
fucking violent air. It's like there's a red mist that just sets in around
you when Jesus Piece play, and they are so so heavy and barbaric,
it's like a tank rolling through the venue when they play, I think,
on like a purely stunk level, may well just be the heaviest band that
played the festival, just in terms of like the weight and heft and Aaron
Herd as a vocalist, he's like barked, like just intense growls. Like
again sees when this like legitimately crushingly heavy, this high up on the bill.
I mean it's like, again, they're not the most experimental band of
this part of the day, but they still fit in being I mean,
looked them on stage and even with the archco hoodie, they looked fucking cool
on stage, like they all had so much presence. They're so heavy,
and they've actually, know, after the back of the latest album, they've
actually got a couple of vile with like legitimate bangers in the set now,
like fuck the bullshit, Yeah, that is a hit for them. I
think they had those on the first album as well, and that was I
know, you had like a pressure and stuff like that. But I think
it's really stepped up in terms of like recognizable, like oh yeah, well
the mix of the ones they have now this was the thing that really got
me with them over some of the more violent bands that we had on the
main stage, like say Tsunami or Candy or however, they've got songs I
think riffs. When they actually click into them, you know what's going on
with them. Like when Jesus Piece play Curse of the Serpent, you fucking
know what's going on. And when they do fuck the bullshit like it.
It's songs that send people crazy while being that level of barbaric, whereas like
for someone like say Tsunami, it's just you know, the hot overal vibe.
Yeah, I would completely graphic Jesus Peace have got Yeah, it was
watching Jesus Piece and then being so heavy and having that just that reaction that
I have when I'm watching I don't know any number of extreme metal bands I
love when they click into a song I love and it's like, oh yeah,
fuck that riff is like nasty as hell when they do it. And
again it was euro Prison and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, and
Aaron's reactions kind of like during the whole this is not like last time we
played Outbreak, it was that again led it sinking, as like what this
means to these bands where they are getting to play shows on this scale with
this crowd. It's one of the things that I think, like all the
things that I want to give it is what's saying our break out as a
special event. Yeah for me, I mean when I when I talks about
the Jesus Peace Record a couple of months ago, I expressed that I still
thought that they somewhat lack song power, at least compared to their peers.
It comes more live, doesn't it. Yeah, that's it, Like they
have all the heft and brute force in the world and that will take you
very, very far live. But the songs kind of revealed themselves in a
way that I wasn't anticipating. Yeah, they brought the fucking the thunder.
And Aaron Hood is a scary guy, Like even without him, the band
are pretty intimidating. A scary guy who also weirdly seems quite chill and like
you'd have a fun time genuine and turns into a fucking animal, so does
Charles Manson, Like you had that sort of intense like I'm actually a bit
worried Corners and that he's next to a guy who's got chains and spikes next
to his name, and I'm still scared of the fucking like that kind of
like switch between the between some bantily it seems quite chill, and then they
go into the song and like, god damn, this guy wants to kill
a man, Like, yeah, it's great. And then we went kind
of further towards the back to watch a band called Machine Girl who and this
felt like stepping into I'm going to say a cyberpunk kind of future club from
this to the end of the day, basically yeah, because this was where
we leaped into something that was super experimental. Because Machine Girl have opened for
Code Orange before on that like live stream event that they did during the pandemic.
I don't know ne e ever played together in person, but they've certainly
done that, so you know, the name float around. It was something
that was definitely curious to watch, and I was like, yeah, I'll
watch Machine Girl. That'll hopefully be cool. But I don't think we were
quite prepared for Machine Girl. One of the most overwhelming sets us all weekend.
It was mental sounds. They were just blasting at you from like the
symms that kind of seemed to double up and lay up every kind of passing
moment. The drummer just fucking going hard. That was one of those ones
where again you were watching an Indian reformance of that guy just going and it
was like, holy fucking shit, that man is needs like fucking lie down
out of this. It's a unhinged yelp of a vocal kind of starting to
do these just like wearing a Ferrari jumpsuit, by the way, and then
and then he picks up up the time and starts like cranking out these riftest
one and it's kind of like, God, this is so much. There
was that moment and again the lighting just blasting at you all times where it
was Joe want the songs where they were doing this like synth bit and then
it like the beat doubled up in it when they were playing an already quite
fast like Ravy part and then suddenly it like double that and went harder and
me and you just like look, just started laughing. It was just it
was dizzying, is what it was. It was like full on like the
Cross like cyber grind almost a part like kind of halfway between that and Rave
and again on record, I don't know if it necessarily comes together to anything
personally, but live it was such a bewildering assault I really recommend seeing it
if you get the shot, because it was just like, whoa, this
is a fucking sight and sound to behold. Because on record, my most
moving is they've done some video games soundtrack stuff, which again like welcome to
some of the more techno electronic stuff. I can totally see how that work
was videogames. But then live it just becomes like, God, this is
just the most dizzying array of sounds sort of bombarding you. And I was
kinda like, but this is exciting and it is engaging. It's not kind
of just like it never felt a bit whacky or goofy to me, where
I was kinda like, no, this is actually like intense, like pounding
away at you like crazed noise. Yes, I only knew the record wolf
Girl before I saw this set, and I, in my ignorance, I
thought this might be a bit of a breather between Gene's Piece of Orange.
I thought, I'll stand at the back and chill, you know, take
this in and just white noise screeching like IDM. It was like Genghis Tron,
but you could do big Fish, little Fish, cardboard box to it.
Again, the fact there's so much of it. For this style of
music, it's kind of the nature of it was kind of pre programmed,
but the whole thing felt so alive. Yeah. The live drama really added
to that because it was that full long, Yeah I didn't do in your
face. It's got a sort of atri teenage riot quality in that sense.
And what I was expecting really was something a bit more like Venetian Snares or
the mid two twenty tens ravy scynth wave thing, and this was more like
when I saw Melt Banana, but also something that could have you line dancing.
It just I'm going to go back through the catalog because I've not seen
anything like this before. And like I said, for what was meant to
be the part where I relaxed and maybe got some food, it was oral
punishment. It was fucking mad, Yeah, And that led into Code Orange
were for me and me? Are you as well? Sam? Maybe you
as well? Elliott. It was like the most anticipated thing of the weekend
because I don't know if we've mentioned this before, it's been five years since
Code Orange have played a show in the UK. I was actually at the
last one at the one time I went to outbreak prior, and that feels
an awful long time ago. And in those five years, not only as
the world changed dramatically, but Code Orange have changed dramatically. They of course
released Underneath in that time, which feels like a fair while ago now,
but none of us here had had any opportunity to see those songs live.
We have watched from a distance as they have done tours with Corn and all
sorts in the US, but never coming over here, canceling various performances like
a slam dunk I think at one point in Bloodstock and stuff like that.
Obviously, in that time they gained like at least one member because Jamie stepped
out from behind the drum kit to become the full on front man. And
it feels like he's been doing that. I mean, obviously that was round
Underneath that they revealed that the first year they did that was the live launch
stream final and so that's a long time ago now that he's been doing that,
but none of us here had seen it. This was like, oh
my god, we have waited so fucking long, not just to see the
Underneath material and the material they released since then, because it's material that we
love and wanted to see, but also like just one of the bands that
we have been the most like jazzed about in the duration of this podcast,
I guess, And for an awful long fucking time we just weren't able to
see this band that we really love. So the homecoming event for them being
an outbreak was like, Okay, that's that's what't going to be one of
the moments that we've got to go. The reason I went to this festival
over any of the festival this year is I was just like, don't care
about the rest of the lineup. Dave got Code Orange. I'm not waiting
another minute to Code Orange. I have waited five years. Yeah, Elliott,
you were saying that the last time you saw Code Orange was on the
im King cycle. Yeah, twenty fifteen, on the third stage at Download,
in front of who was one of the most violent people in the pit
at that show, the sandwich between a secret set by the Darkness and Evil
Scare. It could not have been less ideal conditions to see Cold Orange.
I mean, they were great, but they're so different now. But then
there's just the four of them. There was no real show at all.
Obviously, I said James was behind the drums, and they didn't have any
of the songs they've released since, so they did still have My World and
I Am King. So the weekend, it's hard to quantify what different animal
they are in twenty twenty three, and yeah, just the whole thing.
I'm going to see what everyone's talking about, A No Barrier show. My
first time seeing them in eight years and from the Shania Twain Travis Bickle montage,
you just knew it was going to be eleven out of ten and it
was. This was another one of the things that they on the Forever cycle,
they used to have this really like oppressive kind of red lighting. This
was like a full on cyber assault, like of just this, you know,
the fucking all of you know, the matrix shit being just like beating
at you like, you know, a fucking light speed. And having only
been able to listen to Code Orange on record for half a decade, and
we all remember how mad was underneath, you know what was to kind of
get your head around when we first heard it, but it's almost like just
to be able to listen to the records had sold short, how actually intense
Code Orange are because swallowing the rabbit Hole live with that breakdown, it was
like mind blowing all over again. It was just like what is going on?
Like the fucking audio like glitch assault, like the sound system just being
blown to fucking smithereens by them while looking around you there are fists just fucking
flying everywhere. It was fucking like staggeringly hard like they were. They were
the one banas. It actually like really bought a genuine stage show in terms
of making news, Like because the backdrop outback was this giant screen, and
a lot of bands I've just had the outback logo or a static image of
their backdrop. Code Orange went all in on having like unique screen. That
conversion of rotempts in the album marts was really cool. But Code Orangs having
unique visuals for every song, combined with them clearly peing a bit more fort
and effort into the lighting, gave it a sense of like actual specialness.
I mean, how much that I actually could have taken in quite limited.
I don't know how much I can actually contribute to this in terms of like
objectively reviewing this, because I just Code Orange was the set where the Red
Mist the second and I was like I was just going forward that the moment
that opened with Grooming My Replacement, and I was just like, fucking let's
go, and like jam of wins seconds has smashed his head in with his
mic and his dripping blood within the minute of Grooming My Replace and I was
called, like, this is fucking intense, and like they are the most
intense band in terms of how they play their instruments. Age member of codeins
plays their instruments. I've said, like they're trying to break their guitars,
they are so hard at them, and like that intensity never lets up.
So when you have groom own Placement, going into Swallowing the rabbit Hole seamlessly
into in Fear was just like again stepping into the cyber nighte Apocalypse didn't do
loads of Underneath material. It was you know again opening with the new song
and then Swallow the rabbit Hole in it and in Fear back to back um
and then they did the remix version of Undernea Drowning in It version of Underneath,
which again mental because a it fucked up how you sing along to the
chorus because it drops lines out and stuff. But it was so high paced
it was like WHOA where am I again? It was a bewildering thing.
Yeah, like like to me though, that went fucking awful. That was
when I stage dive too, because I was just gonna like so quip and
that beat it was like yeah yeah, like the level of again like oh
my god, into it, like when they were doing bleeding in the blur,
the ending of like the line where Reba was just like screaming like it's
to make fit, like not sucking the nice melodics, just like I was
like, oh god, this would be the chill moment they said no bodies
were flying just as hard. It was insane. Never like it never louted.
The closures was the Dreams of Inertia dream toothing, which still even again
just had I forgotten they do that. Every time the Dreams of Inertia chorus
came back around, it was like, oh yes, this is so fucking
cool. But it had so much crushing sonic power to it, like when
they're going to Spy and that riff hits on that main riff the Spy and
again you're bouncing, but it's so packed in and elbows are flying and bodies
are flying at you. It is kind of like fucking hell, what what
is going on? Here and again, Jamie stalking that stage like like then
he comes on with like a like warped mask of his own face, like
just kind of add to the weird uncanny nature of it, like and like
Joe running up and like grabbing people and pulling them on stage to get them
to stage dive like that. Every members are so riled up and wanted this
to be violent and choic as possible. Every member of Cold Orange has,
maybe more than any other band of their generation, has such unique presence because
Jamie, when he came out from behind the kit, I did wonder if
he was gonna have the same sort of charisma, unique appeal or whatever.
He stalks the stage like Michael Myers and then grabbing people to sing parts.
And then Shade looking like a goth. Bill Gates reboot has rockstar flare of
her own, and Joe is like one of the security onto arch has just
been allowed to join the show. He's so huge and scary looking like him
coming to back and just grabbing you by the sort of stuff. And they
can get John stage stage dive, do your part. They were broad stretches
of this gig that I don't really remember. Lace it was the red missing
like groomer replacement. When I came in, I was like, yeah,
I knew it was going to sound fucking hard, but Jesus wept and then
swallowing the rabbit hole. I can only remember the down we go a bit
when like one quick moment of clarity and then talking about the stage diving,
I was doing like civil war strategies, trying to work out when and where
it's a stage that I was just going, Okay, I've seen people jumping
off there they don't get caught. Do you go up during a rush or
do you go up on your own? And then when my world came in,
I found myself up the front, and I mean I stumbled getting up
and ended up. It ended looking a bit like when Private Pile tried to
do the obstacle in full metal jacket. So I hope the cameras were looking
elsewhere for that, I mean my world. I was like, I was
spin kigging across the stage to my world because that I was like that riff
again, he just no, that is a fight riff. We had a
question a while ago about who in twenty twenty three we would say are the
best live bands, and I was saying, how it's kind of a difficult
question because there's still a lot that we haven't been able to see post pandemic,
and how like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, Code Orange and Oathbreaker would
have been like the first two names off the top of my head is like
definite, those are the best live bands around. But hadn't been able to
say that about some of the acts like Code Orange because we hadn't had your
cheat to see them in a while. Particularly with the Code Orange, They've
grown so much in that time. After this weekend, can once again say
Code Orange might well be the best live band in the world still like it
was nut the level of carnage, the level of stage presence, the level
of audio fucking terror. Where again I cannot express how much again the most
mental material I have, how in the live environment it just like explodes the
inside of your head. They put the fear of God into you. Like
the other really hardcore acts on the bill, like Jesus Peace and so on,
but none of those are able to kind of bridge into the experimental fair
of Machine Girl and Death Grips and so on. They're the only one you'd
put in that slot between those bands, and like again I wasn't far at
the front like you. I'd played that card with Converge. I was just
sort of in the middle. But there was these open and a pit opened
up at the front, and so there was the natural thing of everyone gets
pushed back behind and I stepped backwards into nothing because I realized directly behind me
another huge pit had opened up, and we were like this thin line of
people between the two things, and as you say, fucking Jamie was like
bashing his head to pieces. And then again past the opening where they did
like the handful of new songs, we were saying, like we want even
more. They didn't play out for Blood, which maybe they did that because
there were too many hardcore babies, not like whining about it, although I
don't think that's very code orange to about to that, but like no,
I think it's just they had forty minutes. Yeah, I've listed one of
the songs from the last twelve months I listened to the most. I still
need to see that song live. But they began to lean more into older
materials I went on, and it became again almost like this homecoming of like
five years gone from Outbreak, to Outbreak when they did the ending of My
World and Forever My World. As you say, in my head, it's
almost like that Outbreak song, right, It's like this is just right in
this environment, this particular song is king that intro kicks, the spin kicks
start going, and then Forever as well, which I vividly remember. It's
like my overriding memory from the last Outbreak I went to seeing them close it
and the final breakdown part Forever. I just vividly remember going feral and essentially
starting a pit with the people around me, and it was almost like I
had a flashback of the same moment happening again, and during that ending part,
where again I would have liked to have seen some of the new material
that we still haven't got a chance to see. But it was this feeling
of like we had the hardcore Legends spot yesterday with Convergent Bain, but this
is like already that this is like legendary Outbreak icon type hardcore material, like
My World is nearly ten years old, and people must for that song at
that festival like it's a song that changed their lives. It's mental and it
felt like again forty minutes was not enough for Code but again I wouldn't have
cut anything of the sex because it all felt so well judged and kind of
like the it's all had like pigs and trosting it, where like it can
almost give you a moment you're going to be a bit more reserved, but
not actually be any less terrifying. Again by the time of them into that
final brand than forever and Joe is also his head is now busted over them,
like this band have no sort of self preservation instinct. They want violence
and carnage. Like again, this forty minutes is up there with the three
hours of Bruce Springsteen. Note maybe not quite that, but it was.
You know, it's a close second place of the best week I've seen this
year. There's just forty minute Apocalypse and there's like them saying like this one
the best shows we ever played in this bunker in a warehouse in Manchester,
like could not. It's one of those moments where like we'd heard so much
bullshit surrounding Code Orange since last time they were here, like people criticizing them
for this that and the they're like not becoming the biggest band in the world
or whatever, like hardcore kids saying they're past it while clinging to bands who
have an ounce of the creativity. Jamie is a bad frontman. They need
someone better. They're a new metal band now, whatever the hell people say
about them, those people, you don't want to hear a word another word
of it. After Saturday, like it was such a moment of like,
all of that bullshit is just bullshit because a rammed ten thousand capacity room lost
their minds for Code Orange and you could see Jamie standing at the front of
that stage looking out over that view, lording over it all like fuck,
yes, this is what it's about. This is what we started. Believe
us. They filmed like Sa Majusa's Outbreak when that said drops on YouTube,
watch it and you and you'll see like because it was just something else.
Yes, And the only thing that could follow that level of intensity was Death
Grips because you gott imagine so many bands would have struggled them and if you
if you had that ban set after, they could have headlined at night.
But yeah, yeah, but the first hip hop headliner at Outbreak. But
Death Grips doesn't really feel like that because I think, you know, when
we get to Denzel Curry Denzel Curry is the true like out and out hip
hop headliner of Outbreaks. Here, watching Death Grips feels as much like watching
some kind of extreme metal band as it does you know, a rapper.
It's a really one of inclined experience that nothing quite slips into like, oh
yeah, that's comparable, that's similar. So even if the Outbreak bill had
an overall leaned into hip hop this year, I think Death Grips would always
would have made a kind of sense. I think this is where the day
ticketers were really most obvious, because Death Grips fans are famously nuts. They
are one of the most intensely dedicated fan bases on the planet. They and
they come out to grab what shows they can as well, because Death Grips,
you know, they're quite a draw when they do appear. I've seen
Death Ripts before at their own headline show, so I knew what they were
in, what we were in for the sense from a lot of maybe the
particularly the hardcore Outbreak fans who maybe wouldn't have gone to see someone like Death
Grists before, who hadn't was like not knowing what had happened to them.
Like I said, definitely on of those bands I quiet deficult. I'm not
the biggest fan, but they're sort of thing where I was. I wouldn't
see him like for a while, but I wouldn't necessarily fork out to go
to their own gig. So this was again perfect opportunity for me. I
was like, well, I'm already going for Codeins, but like, hell
yeah, I want to see Death Grips headline. And when they're coming out
and you know, you've just got this boy on just this blaring red the
screen is just read at this point there they've not got, you know,
again one the other finds. So even though it was just a red screen,
really effective use of the sort of screen backdrop. The funniest moment was
still the sound check for me, just kind of be like that. That
sound check was kind of like, oh God, this is gonna be fucking
mental, isn't it. Yeah, So what happened was they came out on
stage again a very um no attention drawn to the particuleever, and suddenly Guillotine
starts playing and you have that that really I like recognized iconic beat and people
just immediately go oh because opening that would be fucking mad. And the beginning
with the it goes, It Goes, It goes dude. Yeah, and
then they end there and people realized that was the sound check and people are
like, oh, fuck, you got It's okay, And then hilariously there
was a one more song chant off stage was so good. I mean,
this was the thing that really swung me getting the ticket. It was a
week or so out of the festival and I was listening to No One Love
Deep Webb in the carnage, thought no they were. They were such a
formative band for me, not just one of the first hip hop acts I
really fell in love with, but maybe the most significant band who I could
genuinely say I was sort of early doors for it. Sounds like a sort
of hipster lie, but I was on. I was stalking grind called karaoke
in twenty eleven and that's where Ex Military sort of started making its rounds.
And since then they've been a real like bucket list band, and I don't
think I've ever come away from a set genuinely speechless before. I don't know
if it was the exhaustion or the sweat. And just to get to give
a mental image of the sweat, I had a beer chucked on my head
overhead moments before the show started, five second, five minutes in. I
didn't know where it hit because the whole body was soaked through. And when
I emerged at the end and parents spotted me and said, our boy's tripped
to the steam room, I tried to quit. You and your friend who
were with you literally like you'd been to a sauna, because you both just
appeared out of this tied around waist covered in sweat, looking like lost sweaty
boys. It was brilliant. It was about like you watched that the first
couple of songs with us, and then you were gone, and I was
like, never seen again. I mean, I can't blame you, like
you probably don't have to go far to reach a pit, to be honest,
because we were quite far back. But that whole front area was a
pit essentially, wasn't it. Yeah, And you could just keep sort of
pit hopping all the way to the front because space just kept opening up.
And when I came back, I was gonna say how great it was,
and I believe my exact words were, and it was that something along those
lines. Yeah. Again. We were stood literally right at the very back
of like the central golden wristband area, which is normally the place where people
can just stand to get a good central view, but not mosh or anything.
And there were pits around us right at the very back of that space.
Again when giving bad people good ideas and that like fucked up extreme metal
blast beat riff occurs, the space around us just went fucking mad. And
like the thing about Death is their set lists feel like a kind of miasma
that you're lost in somehow. It's like this just constant dark murk that sometimes
songs will just burst out of in really jubilant fashion when they'll do you know,
I've seen footage or get got or taki on or whatever. There's kind
of huge heavy hitters, and then it will slip back down into the black
again and get subsumed by something else because there's no stops between their songs,
there's just constant transitions. With the drummer zat Kill, which again for a
hip hop out, they have a live punk drummer, and there's a really
famous death grips image from a few years ago of one of his kits just
covered in his blood from his fucking knuckles, and you watch it and you're
like, watch him play like he doesn't stop, constantly free form flow,
each song too, the next one, no courtesy talking to the crowd at
all, no changes in the lighting at all, just kind of these long,
gangly silhouettes like thrashing around away at the back. And even though they
have such a huge fan base and they have such a huge online profile,
and they've shaken up the industry so much and had such a big influence and
so on, there's still something about Death Grips, particularly when you're at their
shows, that still feels like something of an underground thing, Like it still
feels like a genuinely subversive, dangerous event that you've kind of wandered your way
naively into. So for Outbreak, I imagine it would have been a lot
of people being like WHOA like shows can still feel like that here where,
even when it's outside what is sort of normal for Outbreak? I genuinely think
Death Grips, if it take a sort of size out of it. On
a sort of artistic level, they're in the lineage of bands like Crass,
Nine Inch Nails, Swans, that sort of thing, those bands twenty Century
one, oh for sure, Like when System Blower came in as the intro,
which has we came to blow your system into that like comically caustic sub
drop as a way to open your set. But then when they played I've
seen footage the band that I've just compared to crass and throbbing, like it
had the crowd bouncing like it was my generation or something. It was fucking
lunacy. I mean, like to me again, I can't see you all
the def Greate songs, I'm not too familiar with them, but those hits
do so out and like it did, you know, get even a bit
intense for me a points where it's just so relentless and just like wearing you
down and then just giving those odd bits of like okay, here's the banger
you can bounce on too. But they genuinely did feel intense and scary,
like they had that that thing that like noise and industrial and or grind man
taway. It's just it's so full throated and discs and even like barking and
shouting at you, and it's just kind of like constant, just like drill
sergeant yelling at you to just get your arms up basically and just go.
And the drums just I've come out of actually being like, man that Deference
drummer is a lunatic. You can keep going for that, Like the little
trends are such a like important part all these vices come together. That is
so just so intense that I was kind of like, you're coming after Code
Orange and again, like I enjoyed the Codeoing set considerably more because I fucking
love Code Orange. But they're the one the few bands, they're probably the
only bands who could come on after them and match them for intensity and for
like devastating power. And let me just say again as the person who've seen
death Grists before, this show wasn't particularly special, Like this wasn't a ab
normal like wow, what a what an incredible night for death Grips. Death
Grip shows just turn up to wherever they might be playing and do that like
that is par for the course. That is what every Death Grip show that
they've ever played in front of a you know, their own fans feels like.
So again, perfect kind of conclusion to that Sunday, I want to
quickly ask you Sam. First of all, yeah, population estimate for Sunday,
because this is the day that people were worried about in terms of would
half of the hard fans go home? I had in my head. I
was like, people are gonna get on early again because Outbreaker put you know,
Diad's blow. Let's put the Flat Spot the Flat Spot Records Trio early
on the Sunday get people in there, and I was like, are people
gonna you know, then Ghost outside watched the one legacy hardcore band in the
final heart of the day and then bug off and go home. So I
was genuinely curious as the side it wasn't as busy as Saturday that you felt
that immediately, and that was probably because, like there were day to get
shifted, but there wasn't, you know, the entire Death Grips contingent.
Yeah, again, I would say it felt more like Saturday was particularly busy,
with the fact that it was top to bottom the best lineup of hardcore
bands, as well as having the, as you say, the the Death
Grips factor, which you can't be underestimated how many tickets that will shift to
people who will come out just for Death Grips. It felt more like that
than it did. Sunday was underperforming, which is which was the reassuring part
about that Yeah, absolutely, it didn't. It didn't. Today still didn't
feel empty, and especially again the hip hop hacks, you you felt towards
the end of the day and some of the when you got some of the
bigger names, they were still pulling in full, packed out outbreak crowds,
which was really good to see. But you know, it definitely like it
was. I think it was just like Saturday was the event day, so
it poured the biggest crowd, but Sunday was still a good a good turnout,
and they they've definitely you know, made the most of the biggest space.
Yeah, as you say, it certainly started very hardcore with the trio
of Bounds at the front hair but the first of which was Zulu Yep again
making their return from actually technically playing a slot down because they played after Scout
last year, but still playing moment, actually getting an extra ten minutes in
their set. I think it was the Mutter of Any used about five minutes
of that because it was funny how these first three bands all kind of were
meant to overlap of each other, and they all made where they carved their
sets a couple minutes early so you could get from one to the other but
but again much bigger crowd this time, much more crowd knowing the songs and
really going for it. Obviously we don't entirely see Zulu I. They're one
of my favorite new bands. You have some very fair and like well justified
criticisms, so I was kind of interested to see how live I would do,
and I imagine coming off it, as we kind of discussed live could
have does lay out like again, what's really good about Zulu, but also
where your criticisms do actually really come to the four live? Because it is
massive, crushing hardcore song, A couple of them, soulful jazz hip hop
interlude, yeah, a bunch of hardcore songs. I like, again,
there's this real sort of like like an attack gang about them where there's like
three of them that do do vocals, like the drummer behind, and there
was just like a really just another one of those hardcore bands where there's really
almost like death metal heaviness about them in their guitar tone, like properly stompy,
nasty, low end things again real power violence. Yeah. But again,
the thing with the Zulu thing is like I almost felt like it almost
came across when review the album that I don't like Zulu. When if I
was reviewing that album, I would give it a seven out of ten.
Right, that's a positive review. I like Zulu and this was a good
set in terms of that real aggression. Again, they came across really cool.
They had charisma when they were playing that kind of fast hardcore, which
not every band does. The funniest moment was the guitar its phraze hand to
the crowd and then just putting out another hand putting that on afterwards. Again,
yeah, cool, like little moment. But but the thing with Zulu
is I constructive criticism is what I would you know, that's this is a
good foundation for something really really cool. But if it's going to get to
the point where people were really bigging it up to me, then there's major
evolution that needs to be done in terms of weaving things together. And I
agree. In terms of watching this, I was like, yeah, that
was that was You had charisma. That was good. But nothing I said
about the album was disproved at all because it was straightforward, beat down hardcore
with some soul until those when they're not playing you know, and that did
that created some kind of cool moments like there was a part when the guitarists
was speaking to the crowd and there was this kind of like really dreamy,
like you know, kind of soul piece behind him, and while he was
talking, like gave this really it was almost like being a like kind of
like like hippie festival or something for it's really dreamy moments. So that was
really really cool as a contrast to again, they're really really heavy stuff.
But in terms of like when they are playing as a hardcore band, if
it's anything revelatory, no it isn't. Yeah, No, I I think
that's fair. I mean again, I think those songs are really like there's
a couple of those songs like again, they've kind of really like stuck with
Me off the album, and I like the space in between where they do
things. I agree, if they really want to capitalize on it, they
need to find a way to integrate those into something where where they do like
the turn stuffing of like really brilliant pop and hardcore and hip hop and all
that they knew that. I think they'll be fantastic what they are though,
it's just a really enjoyable Again early in the day, get everyone in and
just wake you up and shake you to lie. Yeah, it worked well
as the beginning of the day that had loads of hip hop as well.
To have this hardcore band who are using these like other musical elements in their
show at least like the soul breaks and so on. I think Zulu were
cool and this was a good set. Just once again, I don't think
any of my actual critiques of the album, which were constructive critiques, not
condemnations, none of those were actually addressed in a set like this. Did
we saw more creative and spicy stuff on that stage elsewhere that weekend. Buggin
when next over from the second stage, who was busier for the first band
on the second stage than we had seen on the other days. I thought,
is like clearly word around that album had had gotten round, which was
very like you know, shrill piercing short songs. Yeah again, that this
one where I said, like all three of these bands were on the same
label and they were all into like kind of overlap by like ten minutes or
so, but they just just said all. I don't know if that was
intentional as much that is, we're a hardcore band that we're going to play
five minutes under our time slot because that's what we all do. Yeah,
I've onbably just went may have been intention to make sure that Evan because the
vocalist and Bugging did appear during Zulie set as well. She kind of burst
on stage to do her a little bit. But yeah, like Bugging and
really cool. I the have album Concrete Cowboys from a couple of weeks ago.
I think it's awesome because again it's really like punky and fast pace and
aggressive and short shot bust, but it's got a real shrill intensity to it
and they they they bring that in the live show. Yeah. The vocalist
was doing her the picking up the change move an awful lot throughout the set,
which was fun. Yeah. Again like probably when I've got low Semo
because I was I was like, yeah, it was really good a gro
hardcore set, And we could have said that about a bunch of bands already
on this review, but I did. I found Bugging really enjoyable. Yeah,
I mean on that note speed when F two, a lot of people
were there for Speed. Yeah, during the set, there was an awful
lot of like I don't know if this is a thing, but there were
loads people going speed speed like an echoing type feel. It was like really
really bizarre. Musically, I've forgotten everything about Speed, like it was another
one like Fury where on record I would probably never think about it again.
But this year I think they've got more going for them than I say,
again mem bits and like musically don't remember a fucking thing. It was a
hard core set, but there was like an excitable puppy vibe around it.
He's the most hyped up front man, I think of the whole festival.
He was just like not big, but like jacked and just kind of like
hate this is I'm from Sydney, bitch, start running going. I was
like, oh, mate's and my everything with him is everyone that just every
couple of songs he would just grab the guitar with one of his bandmates,
give them the mag let them do them, and he'd played their part of
the time, just didn't stop and he numbers like having a narcosse. I
was twelve years old and shouting out Northern Unrest and like knowing the UKs as
well that this is clearly dude who fucking lives and breathes hardcore and he's so
so enthusiastic about it. Yeah, I found him to be I'm don't like,
you know, the edge of these band infectures none more so than with
Speed because of how much this guy was just living for it. I should
we should just quickly say as well in terms of like international bands shouting out
UK hardcore, they were like three bands on the main stage, like some
of the bigger bands as well, who went off on one about how great
High Vis are, Like particularly like that the front a from Bane did like
a whole speech about how inspiring High Vis it was, Like this band who
pretty knew is that everyone's like, oh yeah, High Vis they're the fucking
shit, which again there's another one that's kind of you can tell, but
there's it was defeated say we didn't want to come on stage after High Vis
they're too good like yeah today though after after this part it was very touristy
for me as like only kind of slight hip hop head again, like my
all time my all time favorite hip hop project is Death Grip and that's in
that kind of again more intense experimental kind of zone. For a lot of
what was booked on Sunday, there was a lot of megoing kind of back
of abe stages just totally you know, open minded, you know, who's
this gent here kind of so on. First up was Tom the Mailman,
who we saw on the second stage, which was very you know, kind
of melodic smooth style. Is that kind of SoundCloud emo hip hop. He
was wearing a faster Pussycat Kill Kill shirt. Very cool, very very small
crowd for him, but he worked to get them involved, which was very
endearing. Yeah, Like he did quite a lot of songs where he was
down in the cloud. He did like on the kind of like the most
kind of emo e balladie song he had, he got everyone to sit down
on the ground and sat down in the middle of them like a little campfire,
and taught them like at least the main hook to the chorus so he
could get a bit of a sing along going. There was one of these
more agros songs where he got the circle bit going around him and and people
got involved with it. As small as the crowd was. I've run him
to be quite impressive in just in terms of like understanding he's playing to like
he's not in his home too, if this is his first time in the
UK and he's playing at a punk and hardcore festival, embracing that and working
to kind of at least get some people will kind of come away to talk
about. Like Tom the mail Man was cool. Yeah, And also I
mainly went to see him because his name was Tom the Mailman, which I
thought was very good. But again it's not something I'm ever going to listen
to again. But in terms of just like watching him before him, it
was like, yeah, go on, no, I wish only good things
for you, sir. And there was also our first meme horn I'm going
to say, or for the next hour or so, they were pretty like
two hours. They were pretty relentless late later became a fixture, didn't it.
I don't know who you went to next. I went to the main
Stay to see play That Boy's A. I went to grab food quickly and
then catch the end of play That Yeah. So I um again for a
couple of these hip hop acts. I went up to the little VIP viewing
area bits on the side. Yeah. I played My High and Mighty car
to law down Above from Above you and I went and sat down and so
on and play the Boys A. He was on the Health, one of
their disco colab albums. So I was slightly aware of his kind of dabblings
into heavy music. He was the first to have this real like you know,
kind of trap bouncing, you know, get people riled up feel,
which was even though he had a very modest crowd for the main area,
like that, dude look quite small to me as a kind of side on
view in that crowd, there was like a pit going and stuff like that.
Yeah, I was stood when I came in at the very back outside
the front standing area, and I could see it was sparse, but people
again were really enthusiastic. I like. And then that went into Michi Darko,
who individually I was very familiar with. He was in a group called
Flatbush Zombies, who I believe I've kind of heard the name, and I
may have heard a couple of tracks, but not super Again, this was
another one of the ones where like when I sat in my little area on
the side, the very heavy bass he had had the extra sound for me
of like the wire mesh on the viewing area vibrating because it was so low.
That was good. He was a very fun character, you can say
that for sure, Like I very much enjoyed half of you ain't getting pussy
so you don't need your battery life participate, bitch, put your phones in
the air, very very good, and then later infamously repeated over the weekend
yes every time he was repeating something, yes, Now I've got some important
to say, yes. Yes. But musically I think those two are kind
of repeats of some of the previous day's hip hop off like going down fairly
well, but not in so major a way where you can undeniably say like
the hip hop act were going off as hard as the hardcore bands, etc.
I very quickly saw a bit of ecstasy on the second stage before showing
the body, which didn't feel like it was up too much. Going in
again, very touristy is thought it was going to be more along the lines
of the kind of choir boy type stuff that they booked on the second stage
last year. Instead it came across more kind of very flimsy rock. I
would like to see them book again a bit more of that dark wave type
choir boy thing, because it almost it would counteracts all just kind of the
genre diverse bookings being all hip hop and stuff like that. And they did
it last year, so and they had them the adverts on the screens for
some of the record labels and so on that have signed like a lot of
the bands were there. It was coming up with like Drab Majesty and things
like that, and I would be acquired boy if it were on there,
Yeah, exactly, And I would be quite excited by them bringing in stuff
like that alongside the hip hop, alongside the kind of dreamy alt rock stuff
like Turnover as well. That's another part of the kind of outbreak arsenal I
think they help would be like a great Yeah, he would be an amazing
outbreak And that was a thing that they didn't really draw on this year that
they did last year, and I would like to see that kind of weave
its way into the wider fabric of what outbreak is again. Yeah, but
so that was almost a disappointment that it wasn't that, but you know whatever.
We then pivoted back to punk with showing me the body, and I
have to say again, when I was writing my notes on my phone,
this was where I wrote my first note about what came to define in the
Sunday, which was the right side of the stage first of all. As
it went on, it kind of became the whole area of the stage,
but particularly we went over to the right side of the stage where we're watching,
showing the body near where the Porterloos were, and went, oh,
my god, that's quite That's quite a lot, isn't it. It's a
lot. It was, it was. It got bad on the Sunday.
It wasn't too much for a problem the first two days, but then on
the Sunday, from about yeah, it's about four o'clock onwards, the smell
hit and gave me again one of my other quite well engaged Outbreak festival tweets,
which was the peach with the back of your T shirts. Yeah,
I must have summoned it because I took two piss related T shirts to Outbreak.
I owned more piss related T shirts and any one man to have.
But on the Friday I was rapping piss Grave and on the Sunday I was
rapping Triumvir Fowl and their album Urine of Abomination, And boy was that the
smell of Sunday It was. Yeah, like I think it was mainly the
Poor Yours and yeah, because it was is the Portloos. There were two
sets of Portlos. I was one kind of in the kind of entrance area,
and then there was another one essentially on the right side of where the
stage was, So again I don't know exactly where they would put them,
but it feels like one of the things that they must be aware of it
they must be thinking about for next year, is can we put the portaloos
somewhere that aren't right next to the stage, Because by halfway through Sunday and
then for the rest of Sunday particular, it was unavoidable that if you were
in the main stage area, it was like overwhelming piss stench. I mean,
it's important that there's being the indoor venue where there's no actual on site
toilets essentially that are accessible, so they had something and it was just,
yeah, it was just not pleasant, like getto everyone. I was in
like tua because I was like, Okay, the smell of sweat is overpowering
smell a piss right now that we're calling that a win, the smell of
beer and sweat is stronger the smell of piss victory. Yeah again, But
then the fucking every tweet on my timeline that day and the following day was
about like, you know, more like piss break festival. Oh yeah,
they didn't have if anyone, if anyone wasn't, if anyone was into piss
play, and then they probably had a great tie on the thurday. It
is the one real unfortunate like slight dampener again, Did it ruin the festival
for me? No? Was it unpleasant? Yeah? I always it always
became again part of like the people will remember, Oh yeah Outbreak twenty twenty
three, hopefully if they fixed it for next year. Was that the one
that really smelled of bits that for half of the last day. I would
talk that up as you know, could have been worse. Yeah, appropriately,
I thought show Me the Body were a bit shit, So I so
this was the thing like I would talk about. You know, all the
bands from last year came back and were way better than it, made improvements
show Me the Body outside of not nearly killing someone, I had not made
a single change to what they did last year, And I was just kind
of like it was one I watched and was like I quite enjoyed this at
last year outside of the person breaking their neck, which being an unfortunate kind
of stop the middle, but when they just kept going and blusting it for
like half an hour, just kind of got a bit dull and numbing,
and I was kind of like, just not really anything like that that wowed
me about it. Yeah, well my minus perspective of someone who hadn't seen
them before, but also I don't get them at all, and a lot
of people clearly did right, But none of the records have particularly worked for
me. And I thought i'd see it live because this weekend I saw a
band who on record don't necessarily wound me, but put on really cool shows
and it felt, you know, it was rounded like a punk band,
but in a way that just sounded really off, and you've just got these
kind of big swabs of bass kind of overpowering anything else. You got a
banjo out and you can't hear it at all. It's just like a big
The banjo is literally just in set in place of a guitar. Yeah,
but it was, you know, it's very shouty, but not with any
hooks that I could really draw out, which these really monotonous, kind of
talky parts, and it just sounded bad. And there's something quite clunky and
garish about how they put their songs together to me, and how all the
elements fit together in a way that doesn't sound organic. No musical elements are
really complimenting the others. Again, there's no hooks or particularly stirring moments of
songs. It was just a big clash of kind of unpleasant sounds. Yeah,
like I said, like, I quite like showing the body, and
I was. This is when I kind of walked a bit disappointful, because
I think because they had been again where every banner saw last year had come
back significantly improved even again from the one still to come, but show anybody
felt like there's actually not I feel like I got your live show, that
all you had to offer from seeing you last year, and there's not actually
much more I got. Yeah, it got rowdy, particularly the last song,
but musically, I just don't think it comes too much. I just
don't think it works as a as a band. Little Ugly Maine was the
next hip hop act on the main stage, which I thought worked quite well.
Here's another person who has some crossover into heavy music. I've you know,
I've got friends who you know, back in the day were really big
into Little Ugly May records and so on. I thought sound wise, some
of what the other hip hop acts suffered from of just kind of their their
beats, like overpowering their mic work or vice versa. This was maybe the
best to hip hop acts sounded all weekend in terms of like really heavy beats,
you know people you know, chanty parts back and so on. But
he was also more of like an MC than someone like play that Boy's a
who felt like he was kind of just mainly screaming for mosh pits all of
the time. The log main has this really kind of cold assurance to him
of like really prowling that stage. Yeah. I enjoyed the sort of the
first two thirds of this set, and then I did fun losing it a
little bit. But he did feel, you know again a real confident,
convicted presence, and this was the first hip hop stytle I was like,
okay, no, this is why I'm really starting to see a kind of
like death grips and sort of the pure hip hop stuff. And again maybe
it's because he has his like crossover into alternative music. He really was commanding
the crowd, inciting kind of the pits and actually getting people fully engaged,
and it felt it did feel a much more sort of self assured set.
Yeah, and you got these the recognizable hook parts as well, that are
delivered with a real kind of smooth ease that still conveys this kind of killer
lying beneath the surface, like you know, no slack in my Mac and
that kind of stuff. Again, if it was one of the acts,
well, like if Outbreak keep booking hip Hop, I could see them booking
a little ugly Maine to do it again and it becoming you know, it
really works there again we swing back again to a more t and m faithful
kind of act because Loathe played next, and this was my actual first time
seeing Loath, which everyone else tells me is mad because they've been everywhere,
but they've not played any of the tours or events that I have, particularly
you live in Liverpool and you've not seen Love. I've seen Loathe walking around,
but I have like not being at any of the events that they've been
kind of drawn to. And the thing with Loath is you hear all the
time, you hear more about their tech issues and do the shows really and
people would take bets like what do you think is going to go wrong with
Loath this time? So even though I had been I hadn't been present at
any of these sort of disaster events. I was quite happy to go down
really well for them because actually thought they were one of the best sounding bands
of the whole weekend. One of my favorite times i've seen Loath again.
They were a band that last outbreak, because I've seen them a bunch recently.
I was and last yet they lean on some of the more chill material
and I don't think that entirely worked in favor of them, So I was
a little bit like, Okay, we'll see ow they go this year's outbreak.
This year they went all in on, like let's just go fully in
on the hardest ship we've got. And it was It was because we were
discussing, you know that gent guitar turn that love do I mean, I
mean, they're one of the best bands at it it, but hearing it
this weekend where they the only band actually pulling the out made it sound quite
fresh. Yeah, it wasn't It really was. It was like if I
had been hearing several days of that gent metalcore guitar tone, but when it
was the only one of the weekend and they were sound checking, I was
like, Oh, that's a bit of a chunky, chunky sound, isn't
it. And again it's I don't listen to the one record an awful lot,
you know, kind of modern metal core plus deft tones, you know,
not something I'm going to spend huge amounts of time with. But they
were really cool and the presence they had really worked cadem again with this kind
of mix of like laid Back and Suath with the more feral bits of their
songs with you who like folds screeching in them, and then they have this
kind of melodic, kind of danceable quality as well. Yeah, they used
some like the ambient electronic staff off that second album. They did, like
it kind of interludes two a mirror being the one kind of big sing along
moment which again that actually does sound massive like it was a really well judged
set list of how can we make the most of it? And again crowd
were really for me. It was towards the end the sing along for it
is it really you? And that lift at the end and that that sounded
huge like it was again it was one of those moments along with your your
high visits and so on, where it really was like a room filled with
so much melody of people all there with it and no Barrier venue again,
people like running up and hugging cadem at the end and stuff like that.
It was really good. I have to imagine for them, it's one of
the better shows that they've played. I would you say it's one of the
best times I've seen them. And I was really happy about that because I
was kind of like, I like again, last one from album, because
like I kind of just want a new album now I'm going to see him
again. But I was like, I was kind of a bit more like,
come on, I hope they impressed more this timmer and I was like,
yeah, no, they really rose to the occasion on this. Yeah,
that could almost be like a great cap to the album cycle if they
do have something new in the pipeline fairly soon. And then Trapped under Ice,
which was the last hardcore band of the festival on the main stage at
least like kind of at seven o'clock. I think they were on like Outbreak
unheard of, Yeah, no again, Outbreak veterans. They've headlined the festival
before that they are kind of are one of the most significant hardcore bands of
the sort of late Norty's early twenty tens in what they have splintered off into
Becoming but for themselves they were a bit more of like the cult choice in
a way now comparatively to the bands that have come from them. But I
love Trapped under Ice. They or one of the first hardcore bands. Again.
I really got into when Big Kiska Night came out, so I've only
seen them once before at that time. They opened with pleased to Meet You,
and by the end of that first chorus I busted my head open um
so I didn't realize at the end of the song. And then when I
wiped the sweat of my forehead and my hand was red and I was like,
ah shit. So I was like, well, do I risk going
forward for TUI again and that happening or I was like, do you know
what, I've stayed to have launch weekend and I've not done it. I'm
gonna do it for TUI so I can get that to UI set of actual
the whole set going hard for it, and yeah, I was so really
excited for this, just as there from and he's like one of the most
ridiculous kind of hardcore character. He is a ridiculous looking man like he's Hill
and Jack Pie's but there's like really like fancy sunglasses. He changed headgear so
many times during this set. I swear he wore about three different sets of
sunglasses, is like several different hats. I don't know where he was getting
them from. I don't know whether people were handing him from them crowd,
whether he had a supply. It was mental how many fucking I was accepting,
like expecting to turn up like cyclops at one point. I just have
some like goggles yeah, like from the guying now Friend's angel Dush, you
know, which is kind of like the jangly acoustic hardcore punk sort of stuff.
Getting him back in these full on like hardcore swagger stomp around the stage
conduct The cause of TUI was like, Yeah, this is is what you
should be doing this. This was like in terms of from the sort of
the mid area of where I was. Katar was a little quite at point,
so you couldn't fully make out like the riffs of which songs were what,
But it was just all about the kind of stage invasion energy of it.
Because when you imagining along, when you imagine a hardcore festival and you
imagine like a million guest vocalists just running out from each side, grabbing the
mic for one part of a song and then bouncing. Tui was the closest
thing at this year's Outbreak too, that like mental image of a hardcore show
and I think that in pain of truth with the two. Yeah, but
it's I think it's always going to be. They are that band for people,
right because again they have that that sort of cult spot or they are
being an important bath for a lot of people, and people are again like
the High Vis guy ran out and did other people I didn't recognize, but
again a High is a kind of not a band you would necessarily associate with
Tui, but the guy fucking knew those words and came out for that,
and yeah, it was just a very rowdy, classic heart it was.
It was a great final image for hardcore at Outbreak twenty twenty three, like
if that's the end of at least that day of hardcore, the final image
of that in your mind being you know Tui every day I'm alive, etc.
Yeah, Tui till I die, like say opening were Born to Die,
dropping True Love, Please to Meet You, like the hits off of
the album. The hits VP a little bit off the last album, but
it was just a real feel good hardcore set and I had I had a
great time with it. Yeah, Turnover when X which was again another one
that the smell really added to when you're enjoying some dream poppy thing with the
the correct atmosphere or just overwhelming stale piss. But Turnover, particularly at a
place like Outbreak, which has its roots in punk as opposed to I don't
know if they ever go off and play like Coachella or whatever, or like
some Pitchfork festival or something. They're kind of filling in again that nowadays they
sound more like Tame in Parlor, but they're sort of in the same slot
here with someone like Basement last year when they were doing coloring in kindness.
So Turnover they open with a couple of those kind of newer keyboard jams and
people are kind of, you know, just politely vibing, and then third
song in they hit cutting my fingers off into humming from peripheral vision, and
the cheer that went up as soon as like not even the sing or anything,
which just the lightest guitar strokes at the start of cutting my fingers off.
People's like, yes, this is what we want to it was very
much and again like it's because Peripheral Vision is like every Mosher is sad album,
every hard like that. There's not by a canceled band will say um,
but like there's one of those again, like those albums at all the
hardcore kids would reach to when they're feeling a little bit sad, want to
cry, and but not to like a laddispute or too shame where they want
to really slow and sad. Privivisition is kind of the album. So you
could feel the difference in response to the older new stuff. I actually really
liked a lot, I think myself in the way that that really were love
when you get those like slinky keyboards. Yeah, a fine song again that
a they had this very laid back, dreamy air to them with these like
kaleidoscopic projections behind them as well. I think along we've quite a good use
of the screen. Yeah, along with Code Orange, they were the band
who did make use of the video screen, not including just Bruce Willis sitting
behind Sosunami, but again combined with you had that dreamy again kalidoscopic thing,
combined with the outbreak factor or people stage diving for take my Head at the
end of it. It was like a very strange and unique experience I had
for them as well. Obviously very good they had the tiered stage or a
keyboard or be getting knocked the fuck over, but absolutely yeah, the newer
vibe stuff, it was nice. But the people knowing the words factor too,
Like it was noticeable, but like for you know, the big part
in cutting my fingers off and stuff like that, when people went so loud,
that was when it really shone. And that was it for the rock
stuff. Because the last I did catch one more gay, I went over
to the second stage to catch an no La gay, who I only went
to see because a friend of mine saw them racist that they're really exciting,
so I was I would have liked. I went to go again, set
on my little VIP platform before the last couple of acts and either just have
a sit, just have a sit. Basically, oh, it wasn't gay
after the purposes of narrative. It's here that they were before I switch it.
But yeah, I know the gay Irish kind of like noisy punk band
with a little bit of hip hop kind of influence. M Larry as fuck.
They were so like so much attitude, like like when he's somewhere from
Belfast and then called the crowd cunts like like that was the kind of thing
like they're not they're they're they're not being playing nice. But they were really
impressive, like probably closest to show me the body in terms of pure sound,
but there was just a high level of energy I think from the band
and the performance and unless those kind of really droning cleans or parts, and
it was just kind of more like pulsating bass riffs. The drummer can always
going at it quite a bolittle Chinge really enjoyed them. Yep. Last two
acts on the Sunday on the main stage, both fully immersed in the world
of hip hop, which made a really interesting experience of a festival, the
kind of segue you know, into something like that out of you know,
you started the day watching speed and stuff like that. So judging from like
a TNM perspective, how well this stuff worked at Outbreak, but also from
just a non genre allegiance perspective, just how good things were. El Sweatshirt
was the first of these two who was one of the bigger hip hop names
on the bill for sure. I mean, his crowd would like, you
know, went back to, you know, the back of the venue.
So I mean, for a man who doesn't like shit and doesn't go outside,
there are a lot of people there to see him, which again you
might think about that ticket factor, people drawn in by maybe the top two
bigger hip Yeah. I think I wondered if that was like the day tickets.
They all just turned up at the end of the day, basically yeah,
to something they might not have otherwise gone to. I don't know,
but El Sweatshirt was where my sort of theory that I had been bubbling in
my head over the last two days really crystallized because El Sweatshirt, similarly to
people like Arm and Hammer on the previous day, had a lot of like
quite slow, sparse beats with a really low key vibe. It's not the
agro everybody fucking moves side of hip hop. It didn't have the visual or
atmospheric intensity of you know, something like death Grips, where it's being suffocated
in the smolder of hell. The thing with hip hop like that, particularly
at festivals, stuff that's very very lyrical, based on kind of more stripped
back instrumentals. If you can't decipher the words through the echo of the sound
system and the big hole that's in it becomes essentially useless because it loses the
central drawer and focus of that kind of muse it for people. And like
El Sweatshirt, I'm sure is a very very accomplished rapper, and he's a
very thoughtful, intelligent lyricist, but when you are really straining to hear make
out what he's talking about, I tuned out of those type acts outbreak so
quick because he's just slowly sauntering around the stage doing his thing with a stream
of similar sounding stuff. It was a pretty boring show. I kind of
agree. I found myself getting kind of caught up in the vibes a bit
more and enjoying it. I thought it was pretty cool, But I do
see what you mean about again, the purpose and the meaning of the songs
not being so hyped up and then losing because of sound issues or whatever.
Losing the real kind of cutting point of it did dull the impact. I
don't think I thought it was still of what It was a cool set,
and it's when I was like, God, i've seen El sweatshert wouldn't have
gone to see him otherwise. Enjoyed what I saw but I do, I
do agree with you on that side of hip hop being way less. Yeah,
it's just when I was judging the stuff it really works and the stuff
that didn't. Again, every now and then you click into a song that
was clearly a big one that people knew and people get excited and everything,
But like it was that the stuff that was like the more intimate hip hop.
The appeal of again at El Sweatshirts music is primarily his lyricism and his
personality to come through there and so on, and not really a particularly you
know, impactful live energy, shall we say, And at least on the
main stage of Outbreak, the stuff like that got a bit lost, And
I think the proof in the pudding there was how dramatic the switch was when
that went into Denzel Curry, because that's more of the thing that's needed for
a festival of this than these kind of lyrical rappers. The stuff that had
no hooks right just didn't really connect. Instead, this was like constant hooks
and constant propulsion of sound needed to really sell it and get people swept up
in it as well. Yeah, No, I thought Denzil Carry was fucking
incredible just for that ex every reason to said like it was. It was
the party to end outbreak on which I was like, this is awesome,
Like he's he's got so much confidence, so much swagger, so much like
charisma that is just like oozing out of him every second, and he's into
play with his DJ sort of I come in the guy's name, but like
his DJ had on the back of the stage of him, they were really
like bounced and something might have come across as a bit, you know,
rear stage banter, but it was snappy and fun and that translated into them
the songs, which we again just blasting you with the biggest beats, hooks
all over the place, and it was just like everyone bouncing constantly. I
was like, this is how you yea, this is how you sell hip
hop to a hardcore crowd. Yeah. Again, we were at the space
at like the back of the Golden wristband area, which was not as round
and mental as it was during Death Grips. We actually had a lot of
space there to watch quite casually, but the energy of the crowd in front
of us was pretty mega. It was still a big crowd, it was
not not as big as Death Grips, certainly a small end. I hope
that the hip hop party were excited by playing a no barrier venue like that.
Again, I don't know how often they would have find themselves in a
situation like that, and some of them seemed occasionally bewildered by someone cart wheeling
across the stage. Yeah. Again, with the day tickets, You're not
sure how much of it became like, you know, hardcore fans sort of
casually watching these acts versus the rap fans who come in who have maybe not
gone to an outbreak before. There was there was a guy who went up
on stage and Denzel Curryan's took like an on stage selfie with him, which
is not very hardcore fan behavior, right, you know, yeah, do
that there and you get Parker Cannon right. And then there was a very
awkward moment as well where there was a big stage invasion but they weren't getting
off the stage afterwards, and the security and Denzel Curry had to be like,
wet, we're not gonna be able to continue the set until you get
off the stage. And there's the idea of you know, I don't Again,
I don't know our hip hop fans used to the kind of etiquette of
like get up and get off that we saw with the hardcore I don't really
know. I mean there was a lot of like because I know it's more
than any of you. There was a lot of people getting on stage doing
them run across but not actually stage diving this year, and I think that
was kind of again just people who don't normally come to these shows wanting to
be involved in the moment I was getting having fun and then not kind of
having it in them to actually fling themselves onto the crowd of people for fear
of not getting caught. So it definitely, yeah, again I don't mind
that so much. For me, it was more again it was it was
during this thing when people got up but didn't actually get off and just sort
of hung around. Yeah, but there was more just part of that.
There was a clear amount of people who clearly wanted to take part and get
involved in the hardcore side of things without really knowing and understanding all the bits
to go into it. And that was most evident then when yeah, that
stage of agent happened and they everyone kind of just hung around thinking like,
yeah, let's stay up here, and there was yeah, so you've had
your moment, even though the set was great, that was maybe one of
the most awkward moments the weekend where I was like, oh, I hope
people actually just you know, get off that fucking stage. But all of
these parts in these songs that get people like really amped up and repeating them
back to him, you know, like I Ain't No Way and balloons and
all these kind of songs. He brought out a little Ugly Maine again for
a song that they did together, and people were like banging into that,
and I think again it just comes down to Denzel Curry shows are hype an
earl sweatshirt shows aren't really at least by this evidence. So it's just in
the same way like when you're booking metal stuff at Outbreak, it's like crossover
thrash and like certain types of metal core and not you know, sleep or
like Paul Bearer or something like. It's just not the right atmosphere for it.
No absolutely, I mean, like us think about like a wall of
death that Denzel covid going, which did literally go from the front of the
stage through the very back of that the barrier at the back of the front
section where we were kind of like fair play that's you know, he is
Clason who again Denzel Curring nose metal, he's done rage against machine coverage.
No, this is not a dude who is not a stranger to the heavier
side of things. So I've always quinationed that he said to not lean on
that in his cellist and was still kind of like playing sort of typical set
but just encouraging the crowd to get really I grow with it. Whichever was
Yeah, again, I think it's against that, that kind of indecipherability that
played the bands who really rely on the acts who really rely on that less
important when just the songs are hitting so hard as they did and the rhythms
are hitting so hard. I do feel slightly vindicated that people for ages have
been going Denzel Curry run the duels as like the most obvious hip hop acts
to book at rock festivals, and it was Death Grips, the most underground
extreme act that may always the hardest, like I've always said, definitely stob
but they're because they're the most underground, and I think there's some people who
kind of like I've always wondered why rock magazines don't cover Death Grips more,
and I think it's the it's kind of like the the kind of agit of
like kind of viewing deficuls is a bit of a hipster thing because of like
how much they appeal to like a Pitchfork. Yeah, but again, like
we like we've done an album club on Death Grips and again, as much
as I enjoyed Denzel Curry and you know he was great Outbreak and someone i'd
love to see him back, we probably won't be doing that we're reviewing those
albums, but like, um, but I do think again, Death Grips
are so like one of a kind, whereas Denzel Curry was more like I
guess the actual proof that like mainline hip hop, if the characteristics are right,
can definitely work at somewhere like Outbreak. I mean I did like again
not saying that, but I enjoyed the Denzel Curry set more just so I
was like, this is just the best vibes to end on. It was
so much fun, whereas Death Grips was just like getting smacked over the head.
I think again, a lot of people were excited to get the chance
to see acts like Denzel Curry and so and at a place like Outbreak when
they might not otherwise had the opportunity to in a venue like that as well.
And again, I hope the hip hop guys were like, whoa,
that was a pretty crazy show. We had people doing cart wheels across the
stage for us. Yeah, Like, I hope so too. And I
think it'd be cool with Outbreaking continue this kind of like cross crossing the sort
of cultures and scenes, but even like boarding out more just to kind of
like be the cool underground festival essentially that just happens to take place in the
ten thousand capacity bunker. Yeah, and we were thinking about the future of
the as well, because in terms of moving up to this massive venue they're
in, they can't go back to just booking hardcore bands and fill that space.
You know. It's like if they if they're going to hold onto the
place of that size, like they capped out what hardcore Outbreak could be last
time. If they're going to keep going for this, they need that kind
of demographic crossover that they have. So I would expect next year more hip
hop acts or at least as many as this year. Again, I would
like to see them bring in some of that kind of you know, goth
or alternative thing as well. As long as there is I guess a majority
hardcore feel with this other stuff, like you know, sprinkled in, I
think it can work really well. And as long as they can keep filling
that space with that thing, I think it can be really exciting. Yeah.
I mean, I think it showed that hardcore is still where the lifeblood
of Outbreak is, where you just look at the attendance as a whole,
but there is a definite place for stepping into other genres and it like,
I'm totally down for a diverse just like I say, cool underground, Like
again, like there was a scary of me a lot is so ingraining,
skate could and things like that. Just appearing to that crowd and just offering
some of the other festivals can't offer. I think he's where Outbreak can really
Yeah. And again, so much of the conversation around hip hop at rock
festival, so when people always talk about download, and I ever think I
think people care about download way too much. I think people will send like
position download as like the center of the universe way too much. And I
think this is proof that like again, download You've got so many just sort
of very traditional rock fans who are going to be there. Who If you
put run the Jewels on or something, maybe it will work, but there's
going to be a level of resistance to it. I think somewhere like Outbreak
is just proof that if you go into find the right events that have the
right kind of audience and have the right open minded atmosphere, that maybe a
massive weekend field festival for traditional rock fans or whatever isn't going to have like
not everything needs to be about download as what I'm say, like, go
to go to somewhere like Outbreak and you will see this really cool stuff going
on. You said that last year's Outbreak was like maybe your favorite festival weekend.
Ever, how did this one stuck up? I think as a whole,
I still we've heard last year, but that like I said that,
that right, that closing one on the Saturday is gonna be one MS Like
man, that was that was something else. Yeah, And again for me,
if they keep booking lineups that are as exciting as this year's, I
can see myself not having a five year hiatus from it this time. And
you know, maybe I'll be back here next year. I don't know,
but like certainly I don't think this will be my last Outbreak because it is.
It's a really really cool part of the festival calendar either if you're not
a dedicated one die hard hardcore fan. Again, like there were a few
people from the T and M listenership who came up trust across the weekend and
people were like, yeah, this is my first Outbreak. I'd not necessarily
like, you know, I'm not someone who is super following Speed and Urie
and all these type bands, but like there was enough here to get me
in, And I hope that you will really cool weekends and it will become
a again in the same way we love the Champion Damnation and all these different
two thousand trees are tangent whatever. Yeah, the different kind of events offer
different things. Outbreak is a fucking cool festival. And there we go.
If you were at Outbreak, I hope you had a great time and the
pisswaft didn't get you too down come the end of Sunday, thank you for
listening and being here with us. If you would, if you'd leave us
a positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you used to do
so you're able to do that on that'd be a lovely help. If you
like what we do, it helps us kind of get up those algorithms and
all that bollocks that we have to contend with this evening. As this goes
out, I will be seeing Iron Maiden to get some heavy metal back into
my system. So we will be back next week talking about that, along
with whatever else happens. We had been that's no metal, See you next time.