LIVE FROM THE PIT: Contention, Kenya, Long Goodbye and Hour Of Reprisal

The New Cross Inn is a real haunt of Out Of Rage. Since Reality Unfolds at the beginning of the year, we’ve barely left! With their upcoming Summer Jam series in particular, we’ll be a part of the furniture soon enough - and our latest venture to South London took us on a trip to see four phenomenal acts, all within the realms of hardcore but each with a different spin on the genre. Headliners Contention are one of the best and brightest ‘underground’ bands in the genre, with last year’s album ‘Artillery From Heaven’ being rated as one of the best releases of the year period, and after their set at Outbreak it would’ve been silly not to take another opportunity to go and witness their sheer sonic decimation an extra time; of course we didn’t just see them, with three stellar support acts all raring to blow us to smithereens.

Opening the pit for the first time on the night was Norwich’s own straight edge heroes in Hour Of Reprisal. The antifascist group ripped the New Cross a new one, playing a selection of songs from their 2023 album ‘A New World From the Ashes of the Old’ and their 2024 EP ‘Endless War, Endless Peace’. Repping all the bands playing, the straight edge community, and Norwich, they gave a compelling demonstration of British hardcore through songs like ‘Rat Nest’ and ‘Failed State’, whilst their cover of Hatebreed’s ‘Tear It Down’ was nothing if not a treat for us all.

Next up were Long Goodbye, who’d come down with Contention from Outbreak - having to travel away from their home in the North West of England just to come and treat us to some nasty metalcore, sprinkled with plenty of hardcore influence. With a smaller discography than everyone else on the bill, their set was incredibly compact - working through their whole discography to provide us a thrilling twenty or so minutes of enjoyment. ‘i used to dream of drowning’ was very well received, as was the relative deep cut ‘endlessly repairing a dying format’, both from last year’s ‘i used to dream of drowning’ EP, and latest single ‘fix the memory’ was also excellent live, with our only complaint being that we wish the set had been longer!

Kenya were up next as the main support, also having travelled all the way down from Manchester, and brought their brutal Bali hardcore to London in what ended up being an absolute riot of a set. The band are from Denpasar, Bali’s largest and capital city, and they never stopped shouting out their scene in what was a passionate display of love for the genre. Songs off of their latest release peppered the set, and in particular ‘Sanity’ and ‘No Hate’ set up some searing breakdowns which caused no end of enjoyment.

Finally, it came time for the headlining heroes, the Floridian firecrackers, the American anarchists, the breakdown bad boys themselves (sorry, I’ll stop the faux wrestling names now): the mighty Contention. Having already laid waste to Outbreak’s third stage two days earlier, the group were in no mind to do any different in London, and gave everybody a plethora of opportunities for stage diving, crowd killing, moshing, spin kicking and more. With eight songs off of ‘Artillery From Heaven’ being played, it was full of the apoplectic rage that they’ve become so popular for. Opening with their own self titled track, and following it up with ‘I.C.B.M.’ into ‘Revenge Directive’, every iota of anger and energy in the crowd was directed into one place - the little circular area in front of the stage with very few people stood in it. The two older tracks they played weren’t exactly ignored either, as ‘A Wasteland Called Peace’ and ‘State of Nature’ still swept the crowd into a frenzy. The last few tracks weren’t calm either - the penultimate song was just the breakdown from ‘Firestorm’ by Earth Crisis, and then the band finished with their enormous track ‘Inflict My Will’, as thirty-odd people each tried to rip the mic from each others hands and own that enormous yell for themselves, before the ruinous breakdown sent everybody careening into each other one last time.

Hardcore is doing amazing things right now all over the world, and the New Cross Inn has genuinely showed so much dedication to all aspects of hardcore in supporting that - whether it be platforming bands from everywhere you could imagine, to hosting important events like Punks for Palestine back in May, and even just being a safe haven for queer people. Shows like this one affirm how important these bands, this scene, and this venue all are to us, and for it to have been played by four such vital bands put a really very large cherry on top. With any luck, Kenya and Contention will be back very soon - although we have little doubt that Long Goodbye and Hour Of Reprisal will make their returns not very long from now!

Words: Jake Longhurst