Tyketto, Warrior Soul & Collateral - Academy 2, Manchester (18/4/26)

Collateral seem very similar to tonight's headliners, being commercial rock with strong vocals carrying decent choruses. The first number I catch is uptempo with acoustic and electric guitars combined. The ballad 'On The Long Road' is suitably heartfelt and the guitar leads are great. The frontman Angelo has a fair amount of charisma and he easily commands the attention of the crowd. The closing 'Mr. Big Shot' has a stomping, infectious chorus. Impressive.

I am both excited and nervous about Warrior Soul's set tonight. I'm excited because I've been listening back to those early albums and remembered how great they are. However, I'm also apprehensive because of a gig I saw involving mainman Kory Clarke around twenty years ago. He was playing in a band called Dirty Rig and I went to see them at Music Box (the downstairs part of Rockworld). Kory was absolutely wasted, and I mean obnoxiously wasted. He was a complete arsehole to the support band, Disarm, and I think he might have got into a fight with his own band too. I had previously seen him as a thoughtful rocker with a political conscience but this just made him look like another drunk idiot rocker.

The thumping 'Intro' with its 'we are the government' refrain helps to build the energy before blasting into their high octane cover of Joy Division's 'Interzone', which is transformed into a dirty rock banger. The swirling alt rock of 'Cargos Of Doom' is powerful and hypnotic. In his shades, tasseled trousers and with his long blonde locks, Kory looks like the rockstar he always should have been. 'Love Destruction' has a fat, pulsing groove and an aggressive yet memorable chorus. Kory seems more in control of himself than the last time I saw him. He is completely dialled in tonight, and is much more respectful of the other bands which is nice to see. The fantastic 'The Drug' is full of energy. The tight, meaty riffing of 'The Party' is the perfect vehicle for Kory to express his ire for the Republican Party as he constantly yells 'tax all the billionaires'. The band are extremely tight and although Kory sounds a little world weary these days that suits many of these songs, particularly the outsiders anthem 'Losers'. Adam Arling's terrific guitar solo on 'Losers' is technically impressive yet still heartfelt. Kory's passion really shines through in his performance. The dynamic Dead Boys style punk of 'Punk And Belligerent' is blistering. That intensity is continued on the closing 'The Wasteland'. I'm shocked at how good Warrior Soul are, it's just a shame the room is only half full. They have been fully rehabilitated in my eyes tonight.

Tyketto open with the classy rock of 'Rescue Me'. Right from the start it is apparent that Danny Vaughn sounds to be in fantastic voice. The infectious 'Wings' gets a large portion of the crowd singing along, and Harry Scott Elliott's guitar solo is great. 'Burning Down Inside' has a towering chorus which is further elevated by those vocals which make anything sound better. Danny is very good technically but his voice also has an indefinable ability to move you, as highlighted on tracks like the poignant 'Standing Alone'.  Two of the opening three numbers are reminders of how good that first album was.

The bluesy 'Higher Than High' is reminiscent of Whitesnake in the verse and sounds more cohesive live. 'Strength In Numbers' has a dirty blues rock groove and another memorable chorus. Harry is an energetic presence throughout, throwing in lots of kicks without missing a beat. Danny pulls out the acoustic guitar for the dark yet hopeful 'Reach' and he positively soars on the killer chorus. I'm not a fan of the new album but tracks like 'Closer To The Sun' make much more sense live whilst 'We Rise' has the makings of a future fan favourite with plenty of opportunity for crowd interaction on the chorus. The anthemic chorus of 'Circle The Wagons' is incredibly emotional.

It isn't all good. 'The Brave' is terribly average whilst their cover of Bo Diddley's 'Riders In The Sky' is ok but you feel that they would have been better replacing it with an original track. They're already a few minutes past curfew and they still haven't played that song but thankfully they manage to fit in the incredible 'Forever Young' although you get the impression that there would be riots if they didn't.

Tyketto ****

Warrior Soul *****

Collateral ****

Sugar Horse & BOI TOI - Star & Garter, Manchester (15/4/26)

I love the Star & Garter but I'd forgotten how depressing it can be when there is a poor turnout for a show. It takes me back to hardcore shows I put on in the nineties and early noughties where only ten people turned up. Tonight is better than that but it is still a pretty pitiful turnout, especially considering how good the new Sugar Horse album is.

Some of the members of BOI TOI were in the bar playing a Magic The Gathering style card game moments before they were due on stage. Their set starts with some samples while the guitar plays a Korn style downtuned riff. However, when the singer joins in it adds a bit of Mike Patton-esque madness to the proceedings. He mixes spoken word passages with screams and some manic falsetto, and it's a bit unhinged but at least in an interesting way. The second track has a riff reminiscent of Marilyn Manson's 'Beautiful People' but the vocals are again all over the place. This track seems more formulaic and therefore less interesting. The singer is on crutches and wearing a fracture boot but he gamely soldiers on, although I get the feeling he would be much more of a hyperactive presence if he was fully mobile. 'Piña Colada' has an electronic pulse and a semi-rapped delivery which is creepy, camp and crazy. It's a punchy little number which sounds like Genghis Tron meets Korn, and yes it is as nuts as that sounds. With such a bonkers mixture of styles, not every song is successful but they are certainly interesting.

Sugar Horse open with the steady stomp of 'Fire Graphics' with it's deliciously heavy riff. Ash Tubb's melodic and emotional vocals are amazing and they add an uplifting, anthemic quality to the music. The LLNN style tectonic heaviness of 'Secret Speech' is otherworldly. Their superpower is mixing the incredibly heavy with astonishing beauty and making it a cohesive whole.

The guitar tone is fantastic and really helps to amplify the impact of sections like the doomy passage in the middle of 'Spit Beach', which is like Big Business wading through tar. 'Ex-Human Shield' mixes lumbering noise rock with shimmering, hopeful shoegaze. It's discordant as hell but the glimmers of optimism shining through really elevate it. Even with earplugs in it's all incredibly loud.

The progressive 'Would You Like Me To Be The Cat?' is probably their most subtle moment, with some sublime guitar work which builds to a soaring, powerful climax. The centrepiece of the new album, 'History's Biggest T-Shirts', is staggering. Starting off all post-punk with twinkling synths and a Hooky style bassline along with some Dave Gahan-esque vocals, it is punctuated by some doomy bursts before veering into a lengthy ambient noise section which is utterly gorgeous despite its discordant nature. It isn't finished there though as it moves into the noisiest stadium rock you're ever heard before we're back to building levelling heaviness with an industrial feel. The closing 'Shouting Judas At Bob Dylan' mixes fragile emo rock with crushing doom to thrilling effect. Sugar Horse are a special band, I just wish more people realised it.

Sugar Horse ****

BOI TOI ***

Stop Making Sense Live - Albert Hall, Manchester (9/4/26)

Talking Heads' 'Stop Making Sense' is recognised as one of the greatest concert films of all time and tonight we are treated to recreation of it by the Slippery People collective. More than forty years after the original release, there is clearly an appetite for this music too as this is the first of two sold out nights.

From the start, it is clear that this will go beyond a mere tribute show and will be more of a near note by note reconstruction. There is the same interaction with the crowd and the same use of the ghetto blaster for the opening number. From the first crisp guitar chords and electronic beats of 'Psycho Killer' it is magic and the crowd are immediately all in. They even have the same 808 breaks.

Dutch Uncles' Duncan Wallis is the man in the David Byrne role and he does a pretty good impression of him, especially his impressive vocals. The stripped back 'Heaven' is amazing. The band gradually increases in size until we have a full ten piece band for the robotic soul of 'Slippery People'. The backing singers are great and give it the same gospel vibes as the original. 'Burning Down The House' is rousing and energetic, and the running man spots garner a roar of recognition from the audience.

The intensity is building, and this is continued with an excellent 'Life During Wartime'. It's like a full workout for some members of the band and Wallis, the backing singers and Michael Clapham on the guitar have to be really fit to keep up the high energy routines. There is some atmospheric lighting for the dirty funk of 'Swamp' which makes the sizeable venue feel really intimate. The Hawaiian tinged chorus of 'What A Day That Was' is uplifting and joyous.

The band take a short break, mimicking the movie and the crowd is abuzz during the interval. This carries on into the second act and the crowd is amped as the band come back on stage with the whimsical melodies of 'This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody). Duncan also gets to indulge in some lamp play with the floor lamp which is now a part of the stage set. The timeless 'Once In A Lifetime', which follows, is electric.

Wallis does a decent job in nailing some of Byrne's eccentricities. However, some of the moves don't seem entirely organic. His voice is much more convincing though.

The percussion section does a great job of driving the uptempo ethnic funk of 'I Zimbra'. The Tom Tom Club moment, 'Genius Of Love', is where they deviate from the movie with the two powerhouse backing singers taking centre stage and singing the 'Genius' sampling 'Fantasy' (yes, the Mariah Carey song) for the most part.

Byrne's oversized suit makes an appearance for the urgent 'Girlfriend Is Better'. The gospel blues of 'Take Me To The River' is blistering while 'Crosseyed And Painless' closes a terrific show in an exhilarating fashion.

Stop Making Sense Live ****

Full Of Hell, The Body, Jarhead Fertilizer & JAD - Gorilla, Manchester (8/4/26)

Poland's JAD open up proceedings tonight. They play straight ahead hardcore punk but it has a driving rhythm and a bit of dynamism. The singer is all vein popping intensity which is always good to see in a hardcore band. There are some electronic noise segments between a couple of the tracks which reminds me of Canvas but the rest of the music is much more conventional. Decent enough though.

Jarhead Fertilizer's opening track starts out as almost slam death metal but there is also a noise element lurking in the background. It soon becomes clear that they aren't an easy band to pin down soundwise as powerviolence and grindcore are soon added to the mix too. The bass tone sounds absolutely filthy whilst the guitars are crushing and chaotic in equal measure. The drummer handles the majority of the vocals and there is a looseness to his playing. He also appears to have two heavy duty industrial chains wrapped around him. The slam parts are satisfyingly heavy while the faster grind parts are consistently excellent. The more mid paced parts are a little more ramshackle and it feels like they are barely managing to hold it together in these moments but the overall package works as a whole. They cram a lot of songs into their set but the variety of styles stops it from getting boring.

The volume is turned up for The Body. That guitar tone is absolutely crushing whilst the drums drive their droning doom at a steady pace. The vocals will always be the divisive element. That atonal screech isn't for everyone and initially it is jarring as hell but after a couple of minutes you get used to it and it becomes another instrument adding to their hypnotic power. The backdrop is really interesting with some medieval depictions of weird monsters. The drumming is excellent, providing each track with what it needs: sometimes tribal and at other times something more primal whilst the guitar levels with its crushing sonic power. It's headache inducing but in the best possible way.

Full Of Hell start off with harsh noise which then switches to blazing grindcore, and that pretty much proves to be the pattern for the remainder of the set. The grind parts are ferocious whilst the noise parts are abrasive as hell. The singer Dylan Walker (who also handles the electronics) is a manic presence. His vocal are suitably harsh because this is nasty music for nasty times. Gabe Solomon's guitar is sharp and incisive whilst the drumming is suitably chaotic, making Full Of Hell's brand of grind punchy, dynamic and impactful. Dylan says it feels weird being on tour given what's happening in the world at the moment. Considering they are such a nihilistic band, they still seem pretty pleased to be here. One track has SunnO))) style guitar chords and the doom/drone elements add different textures rather than the blasting we've had for the majority of their set. As good as they are, they do overstay their welcome a little. 55 minutes seems too long for a style like this, especially when we get a drum solo in the middle of one of the songs.

Full Of Hell ****

The Body *****

Jarhead Fertilizer ****

JAD ***

Kreator, Carcass, Exodus & Nails - Apollo, Manchester (28/3/26)

The Apollo is a grand 3500 capacity former cinema which has been putting on concerts since the '60s. Most of my earliest metal concerts were here and I saw most of the major thrash bands here in the early nineties (apart from Metallica who were far too big by this point but had played here in the mid to late eighties). Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Sepultura and Pantera all played here. Then grunge and later nu-metal happened and bands like that suddenly couldn't really fill places like this anymore. However, times change and extreme metal has had something of a resurgence in recent years and bands such as Behemoth have sold the place out. One band who have experienced a similar rise over recent years are the German thrash veterans Kreator. Their sound has evolved from the savage thrash of the eighties to a mixture of European metal and groove elements, and their popularity has gradually grown to the point where they have near filled the venue, although the stacked bill may have helped too.

As Nails open their set, my first thought is how good the drum sound is, you can clearly hear every beat. Unfortunately, my second thought is that the guitars sound like they're being played in the toilets so it's a struggle to hear that delicious guitar sound they usually have, and this somewhat robs the opening 'Suffering Soul' of impact. The slower, grinding 'Lacking The Ability To Process Empathy' sounds much beefier which makes a major difference. They are essentially a powerviolence band using HM2 pedals to give them a death metal edge. It is fast and furious, and they are probably the most uncompromising band playing tonight. After the initial sound issues, the guitars now sound serrated and ferocious and they create a punishing groove. Todd Jones has always had a way with riffs, no matter what band he is playing in. Carlos Cruz on the drums provides a rock solid base but he makes it look so effortless. Todd is much more personable than his reputation suggests and he cheekily tells the crowd that he's not allowed to talk about stage diving, moshing or other thrash metal activities. He is also complimentary about Damnation Festival, the last time they played in this city. The mid paced parts seem to owe a debt to Carcass. There is much more light and shade than the last time I saw them, when it seemed like they were playing the same song over and over, and this makes for a much more enjoyable experience.

Thrash legends Exodus have much more of the stage available to them, plus a full backdrop and video screens. They open with new track '3111' which is layers and layers of riffs in the classic Exodus tradition. The classic 'Bonded By Blood' sounds as vital as ever. The recently returned Rob Dukes on vocals seems to have injected a new lease of life into the band. Talismanic guitarist Gary Holt is in imperious form and he and Lee Altus help supply the relentless barrage of riffs that form the crushing 'Deathamphetamine'. The mid paced 'Blacklist' is groovy as fuck and gets plenty of fists pumping. Rob is in fine form, commanding the stage well and adding an extra dose of aggression to the Zetro and Baloff songs. The dense, dark and moody 'Goliath' adds different textures and is an opportunity to catch your breath. Some of the people around me were moaning about it being more of an album track than a song for a live show and, whilst I would much rather hear the punchy 'Promise You This' or something off 'Tempo Of The Damned', I still enjoyed it. The pace is picked back up with a ripping 'A Lesson In Violence'. Rob even gets to indulge his rock star fantasies by doing the old Freddie Mercury 'ey yo' routine. An intense 'Toxic Waltz' is the cue for plenty of crowdsurfing and 'some friendly violent fun'. A blistering 'Strike Of The Beast' closes a cracking set which seems to go down a storm with the Manchester faithful.

Carcass open with 'Unfit For Human Consumption', a punchy slice of death metal which has lovely melodic guitar leads, infernal vocals and a killer groove. The mid paced stomp of 'Buried Dreams' is glorious. Jeff Walker looks more like a middle aged dad in a soap opera these days but he still possesses a savage voice. A rapid 'Incarnated Solvent Abuse' raises the energy and intensity. It all looks like it is a bit too much for some and it kicks off in the crowd during the twisted 'No Love Lost'. The putrid old school death metal of 'Exhume To Consume' is really effective and is a nice contrast to the more refined melodic style they are famous for. The guitar playing is excellent throughout; Bill Steer is a fantastic yet understated presence whilst Nip Blackford backs him up admirably. That double stepping beat in 'Corporal Jigsore Quandary' is as magnificent as ever, and the track is the perfect blend of catchiness and brutality. 'Heartwork' is fucking rabid yet is so dynamic and infectious. A stellar performance from the death metal grandmasters.

Kreator's current level of popularity has allowed them to go to town on the set design. A couple of demons flank the stage whilst a huge monstrous face looks on from the background. A massive set of horn rises out of the ground too. It is like a Dio wet dream from the eighties and it looks incredibly imposing.. An interesting intro video plays before the band come on stage which shows artwork of various historical wars and protests coming to life whilst set to the protest song 'Eve Of Destruction'. As impressive as the stage set and introduction are, the opening track 'Seven Serpents' is pretty average in comparison. 'Hail To The Hordes' is a decent slice of tribal heavy metal with a rousing chorus but it's a far cry from the Kreator I remember. 'Enemy Of God' is a pounding Teutonic thrasher but it still manages to come across as pedestrian. Tracks like 'Satanic Anarchy' marry heaviness with a commercial edge in a way that leaves a little unpleasant taste in my mouth. Some torch bearing goblins appear before the hard hitting thrash of 'Hate Über Alles' which is great. 'Betrayer' is fast as hell but still feels a bit flat. The stage is set on fire for the anthemic 'Krushers Of The World' which still feels the wrong side of cheesy. 'Hordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite)' has a decent groove on the chorus. I get that the field Kreator has been ploughing for the last fifteen years may not be entirely to my taste (although I enjoy many of these songs much more on record) but it shouldn't be this boring either.

Kreator **

Carcass ****

Exodus ****

Nails ****

Imarhan - Band On The Wall, Manchester (18/3/26)

Imarhan take to the stage at a ridiculously early time tonight meaning that I miss the first couple of tracks as I've been visiting my dad in hospital. The reason for the early start (as I find out later) is because they're playing two short sets with an intermission in between.

Obviously, Tinariwen are a comparison as they play a similar Tuareg style of desert blues. Rolling, funky grooves and blues licks with the odd electric moment combine with hypnotic vocals to mesmerising effect. They aren't as raw as Tinariwen, they are a much gentler experience and softer, soulful numbers such as 'Okcheur' and 'Tindjatan' really soothe the soul. Serene desert evenings are brought to life by the music but this is probably more tranquil than the reality. 'Achinkad' starts off gentle but midway through is transformed into dirty blues played with a real vengeance.

After the intermission, 'Tahabort' is stomping blues with some excellent guitar work reminiscent of Mdou Moctar which really gets the crowd going. The four voices together are powerful, hypnotic and add authority to the music. One member usually takes the lead and the others follow in a call and response which is captivating. There is a togetherness and brotherhood beween the members of the band which helps when they are constantly required to interact with each other. 'Derhan N'Oulhine' has some anthemic guitar work which brings to mind '80s Celtic rock like Big Country or Simple Minds. The guitar playing is excellent throughout and brings to mind how Mdou Moctar marries classic guitar heroics with African blues. Some tracks result in extended jams and the use of percussion gives them an atavistic feel. This is when they're at their most dancefloor friendly too. The electric freakout towards the end of the encore is glorious. Excellent.

Imarhan ****