LIVE FROM THE PIT: No Play Festival 2025

For hardcore, it begins and ends with the scene. For Out Of Rage, a magazine deep-rooted in the hardcore identity, Liverpool’s No Play was the perfect finale to the festival season. The Scouse promotion has ensured that heavy music has had a home on the Mersey all year round, but in Port City, last weekend’s festivities were the cherry on top of it all, in their own terms the Liver Bird on top of the Royal Liver Building, or even the Mohamed Salah on the Liverpool FC starting formation. No Play is yet another source of the cities musical pride, spurred on by John, Paul, Ringo and George and spin kicked into the present with unmatched brutality.

A day of phenomenal talent with local acts front and center, with Hardcore was the beating pulse of the proceedings, but there was also the opportunity to crowdkill punters in the pit as far into the genres of thrash, rock and jazz. As chaotic as the karaoke-fueled hen parties that take over the city's nightlife, across five stages, Liverpool was heavy and at its best. Headlined by the iconic GUILT TRIP, here are the bands we saw at No Play 2025: 

DEMEANOUR 

“Protect scouse dolls” is printed on DEMEANOUR vocalist Izabel Lavin’s shirt. Starting as she means to go on, she uses the set to scream about the issues that she believes in, gathering her thoughts about supporting the local scene and making hardcore more accessible to women and non-binary people between songs. From Birkenhead, DEMEANOUR bring furious riffs that ooze with groove, demanding the crowd's attention front and center. As the opening band for the main stage, they set the tone for the shred that would continue to devastate for the rest of the day. 

RUST

Canada was represented across the pond with Ontario hardcore outfit RUST. Bringing the grit, the band represented everything great about North American hardcore. Fast-paced, formulaic riffs, both technical and relentless, fill the foundations of their sound, which is so hellbent on starting fires. Amongst it all, vocalist Mike Parsram would acclimatise themselves to the Arts stage with both low monstrous growls and high intensity screeches. Surprisingly, they feature low on the bill and early in the day, but this does not mean that they can’t put on a good show. 

ROZEMARY 

Since the release of their latest EP, The Lies They Made Me Believe, ROZEMARY has been having a breakthrough. Affectionately self-dubbed “baddiecore”, they shift between the nostalgic side of screamo and the darker end of shoegaze to make peace with their pain. The result is surprisingly danceable, sending the tiny EBGB’s pit into a frenzy. Playing their EP in full, with a triumphant rendition of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE’s My Curse sandwiched in the middle, the No Play regulars do not disappoint. 

XAPOTHECARYX 

UK hardcore’s most outspoken exports XAPOTHECARYX made their mark with the most abrasive crowd of the day. Ripping the pit apart and leaving no survivors, they command the stage with their shutdown statements on veganism and the state of the world. For a set so short, it certainly packed a punch. This trip up north for the Southern Collective was beautifully brutal and dazzling to watch. 

PERP WALK 

Welcome to the sickening world of Bristol hardcore outfit PERP WALK. Engrossed in sludge, festering with caveman riffs and often leaving no survivors, the boundary between band and its audience did not exist during this set, as vocalist Pious Paul, saunters shirtless across the mainstage pit. With each track that permeates the Art’s Club, his words echo with pain and respiration. His path to righteousness manifests in the people he meets, the sermon’s he preaches and the lives touched by the revolting tonality created by his bandmates. 

OVERPOWER 

Sieged with harsh vocals and overflowing with cascading guitar riffs, Bristol bruiserweights OVERPOWER have all the charm and romance of the golden age of thrash, with the unpredictability and danger of the UK heavy underground. Whilst they have been previously known to cause a ruckus in chainmail, the pit prevailed with unrivaled camaraderie and chivalrous homage to the shred. OVERPOWER are a force- come hell or high water- that are fierce and should not be underestimated. 

KNIVES 

A jazz interlude from gert lush Bristolians KNIVES. Born in chaos and forged in the hellfires of unpredictability, this close-knit collective have welded punk with the need for the experimental, tempoed to political sensibilities. Two saxophone players lead the romp in the cramped EBGB’s basement, as it soon becomes a rage room of pent up emotions, with all six members giving every ounce of energy they had on the tiniest stage possible. KNIVES are a band that commands every golden moment of the independent scene, and matched with Atlanta firecrackers THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS on tour next year, anything is dangerously possible. 

GUILT TRIP 

You’ve heard it right - Manchester’s GUILT TRIP headlined a Liverpool hardcore festival. As the smoke filled haze fills the Art’s Club room, the ongoing rivalry between the two warring cities met a triumphant end. Headlining Torquay’s Burn It Down the week previously, the northern crowds matched the intense hardcore hostility with pits that decimated and swallowed the crowd alive. A frantic and turbulent spinkicking sea raged on through openers Fallen At My Feet, Surrounded by Pain and Sweet Dreams. Celebrating their latest album Severance in all its wicked brutality, the set decimated with Tearing Your Life Away and demanded your attention with Eyes Wide Shut. The hardcore heavyweights did not have anything here to prove, but further cemented their domination on the UK circuit. 

Where brotherhood bands such as MALEVOLENCE have arguably pulled away from their hardcore roots to be an international pariah of shred, it's safe to say that GUILT TRIP have been handed the iron torch. With it, a deep understanding of the underground scene and its devastating roster of intense and brutal bands that make the UK so heavy and hostile. With hardcore, there is no other way.

Words: Amber Brooks

Photos: Libby Percival