LIVE FROM THE PIT: Loathe, Zetra and Love Is Noise

The Electric in Bristol did not simply open its doors — it exhaled a surge of tension that swept through the venue like a gathering storm. From the moment the first bodies crossed the threshold, the room crackled with anticipation, the air thick with sweat, adrenaline and that unmistakable charge of a crowd preparing to be consumed. This was not a night built for half-measures or passive listening. It was a full plunge into atmosphere, darkness and sonic force, a three-act descent that would drag every person in the room through ambience, ritual and finally, complete obliteration.

LOVE IS NOISE stepped into that simmering tension with a confidence that did not rely on volume or theatrics, but on immersion. Their set unfolded like a slow-moving tide, built on shimmering guitars that glowed like reflections on black water, electronic pulses that throbbed beneath the surface, and vocals that drifted like distant signals cutting through fog. Instead of commanding the room outright, they let the atmosphere expand, note by note, until the venue felt suspended inside their sound. Each song rose with deliberate patience, swelling into luminous crescendos before collapsing back into quiet tension. Early sets often struggle to catch the crowd’s attention — not tonight. LOVE IS NOISE held the room with a quiet but undeniable pull, their restraint functioning as its own form of intensity. By the final track, the audience was not just listening; they were submerged.

But the calm did not last.

From the first flicker of light through the thickening smoke, ZETRA altered the temperature of the room entirely. Where LOVE IS NOISE had bathed the venue in a meditative glow, ZETRA plunged it into shadow. Emerging through a haze of smoke with corpsepaint reflecting the dim lights, they appeared less like musicians and more like occult figures crossing a threshold. Their fairytale mirror glinted behind them, a portal to somewhere deeper and darker than The Electric’s walls could contain.

The music hit with the slow-burning weight of doom, blackened shoegaze and synth-laced melancholy intertwining with ritualistic precision. Their sound did not push the crowd into movement — it held them in a state of suspended awe. Each chord lingered like smoke curling through the rafters, each cadence unfolding with the care of a ceremony. Even the most restless bodies in the pit stilled, drawn into the gravity of ZETRA’s world. They transformed the venue into something subterranean, something sacred and slightly haunted. It was a performance that did not rely on aggression to dominate. It dominated through atmosphere — through total, unwavering control of mood.

And then LOATHE tore the night wide open.

The moment the quartet walked onstage, the crowd erupted with a force that felt physical — as if the entire room had been waiting, braced, coiled for release. Within seconds, LOATHE launched into their set with suffocating intensity, colliding metallic ferocity with massive swells of ambience. Their signature duality — beauty and brutality fused into a single, volatile entity — hit the room like a shockwave. Incense rose from the stage in thick spirals, twisting through the lights and turning the space into a ritual chamber where every note felt incendiary.

Frontman KADEEM FRANCE commanded the stage with magnetic authority, shifting between hell-deep gutturals and haunting melodic lines with a fluidity that should not be possible. ERIK BICKERSTAFFE’s vocals glided above the chaos, offering spectral clarity while the rhythm section carved out foundations heavy enough to bend the air. The band’s control of dynamics was absolute. One moment, the room convulsed under the weight of a breakdown; the next, it hovered in eerie stillness as ambient passages stretched outward like the slow drift of smoke.

The new material hinted at a band entering a more exploratory phase — pushing boundaries, bending genre, refusing stagnation. Gifted Every Strength especially felt like a glimpse through a doorway into Loathe’s next evolution, a reconciliation of aggression and atmosphere with razor-sharp purpose. Yet it was the familiar tracks that triggered the most explosive reactions. When Two Way Mirror floated into the air, the audience shifted from chaos to reverence. Live, the song’s emotional gravity deepened; its textures expanded, wrapping around the venue in a way that made it feel almost sacred.

The set moved like a living being — volatile, shifting, unpredictable — and the audience followed every turn. Bodies collided, surged, stilled, and erupted again as the band sculpted the emotional arc of the night with precision. By the final note, Loathe had not just performed; they had consumed the room, poured themselves into every corner, and left the crowd hollowed out and full all at once.

When the doors finally opened to release the audience into the cold Bristol night, people drifted out dazed, incense still clinging to their clothes. LOVE IS NOISE had opened the gates, ZETRA had dragged everyone into the shadows, and LOATHE had delivered the final, obliterating blow. It was not a show — it was a descent, a ritual, a crucible.

And everyone who stepped inside left changed.

Words: Mia Gailey

Photos: Izzy Sheldon