LIVE FROM THE PIT: Believe In Nothing, Bodach, Rogue Limb and Lindow Moss

About ten years ago, a legendary spit and sawdust pub and music venue, Nottingham’s Old Angel Inn, was bought up and reborn as its moniker, The Angel. Initially unconvinced and slightly disgruntled, the city's scene was nevertheless delivered a polished up version of the old, with the addition of a micro-brewery…Hmmm. Eye rolls aside, The Angel today definitely still holds its weight amid the league of sticky floored venues and the IPA is actually pretty good.

Branded, ‘The Chapel’, it’s the same gig space as a decade before, and, thankfully, a stop on BELIEVE IN NOTHING’s current tour schedule, via the excellent up and coming ‘promoter of all things loud’, FOXTON PRESENTS. The line up for the night was a perfectly balanced repertoire of devastatingly raw and dark sounds, including; two local bands, LINDOW MOSS and ROGUE LIMB, as well as the Rotherham based BODACH, and finally, the demonic, sensory-overload, that was BELIEVE IN NOTHING.

LINDOW MOSS, local grime laden faves, were on first, blasting out their blackened hardcore. The lead guitarist, as ever, looked as cool as a cucumber whilst smashing through the head banging riffs, bouncing over the thick bassy grooves and death growls.

ROGUE LIMB balanced big hardcore sounds with plenty of old school licks. The drummer completely gave us his all, even when he looked like he might have a heart attack, he never let up for a second. Masterly riffing on the guitars, their energy on the stage was catching and one of the warmest. Not only do they play great music, they are really fun to watch and have in the room afterwards!

The penultimate band was BODACH, a two piece with the presence of double that, providing fast hard and riff heavy sounds. Whacking the distortion up to eleventy, they delivered an explosive set that sizzled through the speakers. A tonal change for the night vocally, giving more shouts than growls, with decipherable words and a powerfully poetic resonance. They mentioned a new record on its way, inspired by the classic doomsday sci-fi, War of the Worlds. Part audio book, part album, decried by the singer as “a bit bloody pretentious”. Sounds great! Bring on the pretension, we can not wait to hear it!

BELIEVE IN NOTHING rounded out the night with an experience not to be forgotten. Their show was centred around the alchemy of vocalist and front man, CAINE HEMMINGWAY. Immediately catching us between repulsion and morbid delight, the fans watched as he deep throated a hammer, drooling and heaving in front of everyone, a fitting welcome on this journey of nihilism and despair. Looming over an array of sample boards attached to a short folded step ladder, he conjured a potent chemistry, conducting the sounds and energies of the room, a necromancer transporting us to Fantasia in a hellscape. Between the shrieking rasps, and with a light attached to his throat obscuring the face behind, the fans were sermonised, words heaving in and out of audiability, catching on, “It's ok to give up!”.

Moving throughout the space, interacting in, and amongst the crowd, he licked and spat at walls, forcing the room to withstand his presence and strain against the discomfort, battling with that overwhelming need for compliance and the pretense of politeness. CAINE’s brilliantly coarse vocals scratched over the adept intensity of the band; LAWRENCE RODRIGUEZ, guitar, STEVE COLLIER, guitar and JASPER LYONS, drums, each communing with their instrument, plunging ever deeper into their dense and gloomy sound. At one point during the gig, it became clear some members of the audience could not handle their craft beer, but it did not throw the band's focus off a stitch. The intense process of preparation to channel each performance is detailed in the band diary, on Substack, and in very lush self produced zine, both well worth a read.

This experimental four piece is part of the creative expansion happening within metal and other heavy music genres. With their manager forming one half of the electrifying queercore group DEATH GOALS, and this latest album, Rot, getting released on Church Road Records, they are amongst likeminded, well established, peers. There is an instinctual move toward obliterating the impasse that kept these scenes in the heteronormative, macho realm, and dragging them out into the boundary dissolving identity mashups of the 2020s. Luckily, metalers on the whole, are an excellent bunch, and the old school boys in The Angel really lapped up this depraved artistry as much as the younger folks, excitedly turning to one another exclaiming “That was, like, fucking art!”.

BELIEVE IN NOTHING’s performance, evokes the spirit of Industrial trailblazers, THROBBING GRISTLE, who tore through any and all expectations of what music and art should be. Performance art comes in all shapes and sizes, which is why it is so appealing, but at its best, it is generally executed far outside of the well lit gallery spaces platforming rich-kids-turned-artists, whose most subversive act tends to always involve bad choreography and taking off their clothes…

BELIEVE IN NOTHING are definitely a band to listen to, the new album is a festering swamp of sound sludge to wallow in and they are without a doubt a band, any fan of heavy music, must go and see. And maybe give their writing a read too. Slip deep and get entrenched in the ideas and emotions brimming over here. After all, swamps are the living seething burial sites, essential for our survival

Words: Alana Madden

Photos: Adam North