It's been a whole year since we attended our first festival as a publication, and now we're back there again! Reality Unfolds is an amazing three day event in New Cross, London, that showcases a blindingly good set of hardcore bands, screamo acts, metalcore groups, and more - as well as in it's short three years of life routinely featuring full debuts, UK debuts, debut headliners, one off shows, long-awaited returns, and even last shows! There is always something good to find at Reality Unfolds, even for the most discerning of listeners, and on the first day of the 2025 edition we caught every act to let you know what's what.

Closed Hands kicked off the weekend with a bang - the skramz group decimated their half-hour opening slot with the efficiency of a far more seasoned band. Mixing in basslines that alternately sounded like ones from Iron Maiden's catalogue and staples of the Midwest Emo recipe book, as well as drums that ran the gamut of heavy styles, the low end of the band held immeasurable interest whilst the top end set about raining chaotic anguish onto the New Cross Inn crowd. As it was the singer's first time fronting the band alone, they mentioned they'd been pretty nervous in the week leading up to the show, but the nerves were indistinguishable from excitement as they took the 6 o'clock crowd by the scruff of the neck and dragged them about vocally until they had to finish. Walking offstage, they recieved a very well-deserved round of applause.

Norwich's own Hour Of Reprisal set about to tear down the whole venue, with a brilliant hardcore set that alternately spoke out against right wing hardcore, the police, and also anyone who wasn't moshing hard enough. The straight edge crew had more breakdowns than a petrol car filled with diesel, and in particular the song 'Every Anti Word' had four distinct breakdowns and closer 'Failed State' featured FIVE of them, which made for an incredibly satisfying watch all in all. They're releasing an album in the near future, so any fans of slabs of sonic destruction should keep a close eye on Hour Of Reprisal.

The mighty Vicarage were on third, walking onstage at 19:30, and their modus operandi was clear - to exorcise the crowd in one obscenely heavy set. Playing through their whole November EP 'Perfect Hatred' was a particular highlight of the whole evening, as the release is crushingly good from front to back and sounded even more potent when played live. 'Be Thou Clean' was without a doubt the highlight of their whole set, with the song rippling through onlookers' bodies like a shockwave of rancid heaviness. The band are hopefully going to be touring again soon, so if you've not already seen them you'll very soon have the chance to understand why they're one of the bands on everyone's lips.

Metalcore crew Long Goodbye turned up the aggro mere moments after getting onto that hallowed New Cross Inn stage. The force with which they spat out their bruising tunes cannot be understated, and as the current touring support for headliners WristMeetRazor, they've been warming up for some time so were in furiously fine form on the night. Whilst their entire set was a spectacular display of brute force metalcore, their closer was a level above anything else they played - 'endlessly repairing a dying format' was another one of last night's biggest highlights, and will singlehandedly have made Long Goodbye a plethora of new fans in that crowd.

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the main support slot on day one came from Dry Socket. With a different tone to most of the rest of the bands playing, you might be forgiven for thinking that they got a muted reception, but the brazen American punks showed up and showed out with a pit full to the brim of two-steppers, crowdkillers, moshers and more. Their more punk based hardcore gave an injection of speed and rage to proceedings, and even had a couple of people commando crawling across the floor, which is a new one on a couple of us. Raising the roof with their high paced hardcore from beginning to end, Dry Socket have certainly gained a fan in Out Of Rage.

Finally, it came time for WristMeetRazor to take the stage. The first ever published interview on Out Of Rage was with Justin, the vocalist of WristMeetRazor, so to be able to cover their second ever UK show and first UK festival show (and headline) is a big full circle moment for us! As the lights dimmed and anticipation grew, the volume turned up and Justin demanded the crowd get closer and tighter before they launched into their set. The Washington D.C. five-piece pulled out all the stops to make their caustic, industrial metalcore set a moment to remember, and they succeeded massively. Another of the big highlights of the night was them playing through the track 'Static Reckoning' off of their 2024 effort 'Degeneration', which not only went down a treat with previous fans but riled up the pit yet again for plenty more energy before they finished the night off in style.
And with that, day one of Reality Unfolds was over, but we'll be back again today to see just what kind of musical decimation the genius behind Reality Unfolds, Theo Araby-K, has got in store for us all.
Words: Jake Longhurst
Photos: Lizzie Jones
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