“Understand the ethics, we don’t care about aesthetics.“
Words and photography by Anton Smeeton, contact Anton prior to any use.
Torture are something of an online phenomenon. On paper, they are a band that fall in a niche inside a niche; brutal slam turned avant-garde by virtue of its point of focus. There’s no need for scene stereotypes of pornographic violence to conjure up images of brutality, Torture use their music to convey the relentless suffering and moral void of modern warfare.
But before we experience that we have some of the absolute cream of UK hardcore to warm us up: firstly local beatdown newcomers Regress, delivering a short, sharp set, of short, sharp, heavy hardcore that warms up the dancers for the long night to come. Following them, we have Brighton’s Bodybag – aggressive hardcore that wears its death metal influences for everyone to see and feel. To have this many people dancing this early in the night is a sign of promising things to come.
Regress
Bodybag
Next up are Long Goodbye, fresh off the back of a new EP and with energy by the bucketful. The crowd’s affection for their dissonant brand of metalcore is immediately obvious, the pure technical standard of their playing elevates the music beyond its environment, recalling the peak intensity of UK scene greats like Renounced and the forward-thinking edge of Vein. To top off the offering of local talent, we have Splitknuckle, thirteen years strong and at the apex of their achievement as a band. These Essex kings are familiar and beloved to anyone who’s spent time in and around UK hardcore. Not many bands can say that they can start people crowdkilling with their sound check, but they surely can. Hard, fast and heavy, timeless metallic hardcore that has the whole room jumping, swinging and singing together.
Long Goodbye
Splitknuckle
Torture are an outlier on almost any bill they find themselves on, but here it’s clear why they make it work. The crowd is a unique blend of the disparate tribes that make up heavy music, crust-punks in battle jackets rubbing elbows with kids repping Deathcore merch; dads with grey hair in grindcore tees, and goth teens with hair to make Robert Smith jealous. What brings them all together is the two edges of Torture’s blade – heavy, aggressive music with a heavy, aggressive message. Punishing even as a three-piece, their sound rattles the bricks of New Cross Inn and the bones of everyone inside it. In an increasingly sanitised and commercial age of heavy music Torture changed the rules of engagement for everyone.
Torture
