LIVE FROM THE PIT: WREX, Neversaid, Inner Dog and FACEOVER

Fans are already waiting inside New Cross Inn for WREX on the London leg of their monumental UK and EU tour, including fans who have followed them on their earlier dates and now proudly sport tour exclusive merch. For the Brighton band, this tour follows an absolutely colossal year of festivals, support slots, and their EP Sadworld, their steady rise encouraging them to release an album collection of some of their best work to date, on Somewhere To Begin.

London-based three-piece FACEOVER kicked the night off with their post-hardcore sound to shake the room and wake the fans. Having hit the airwaves earlier this year, the trio have already built up a live loyal following that saw fans headbanging and shouting along to alt-hardcore banger Raise a Glass. The trio are streamlined and play to their vocal and instrumental strengths, Josh Edwards going all in on gritty vocal screams and heavy guitar notes on Bloom & Decay, Ryan Sehmi thrashing their guitar and stomping across the stage during a cover of THE WOMBATS’ Moving To New York, standing still intermittently to harmonise with drummer and vocalist Billy Hunter, who made multi-tasking look far too easy on heavy hitter Out Of Focus. The band paused to thank everyone for coming out early to catch their set, before closing out with a clap-along and fired up end with I Wonder If You Hate Me? and Bliss.

Exploding straight in with Truths, London’s own INNER DOG fanned the flames left from FACEOVER and kept things heated with scathing track Good Wife. Pausing to tune up their instruments, lead vocalist Clémence checked in and hyped up the crowd, gesturing for everyone to get closer and go wild for punk-hardcore Fourteen and The Muse, leaping into the crowd to pace back and forth, while drummer Harry attacked the rhythms. The stage seemed too small to keep her energy contained, the four-piece ripping into unforgiving By Design and deafening Your Ether & Mine, guitarist Aidan adding clean vocals to complement the harsh screams. Having torn through Dali’s House, they caught their breath to thank the crowd, before Clémence bounded out into the crowd once more for closer Smoke Mirror, pointing the mic to screaming fans as bassist Sean jumped down behind her and crashed through the heavy riffs.

With a final push to get the crowd really amped up, hardcore Londoners NEVERSAID stepped up and delivered exponentially. Fighting back against technical issues, the five-piece launched into a new, unreleased track No Unity, lead vocalist Lila giving us everything with guttural screams as she prowled across the stage. Frenetic instrumentals from drummer Finn and guitarists Justin and Saga led us into eviscerating BITCHFIT, Lila pausing to crackdown on the rise of facism and calling for Trans rights to cheers of solidarity, before demanding a pit open up as she leapt into the crowd for Apathy Of A Spokesperson, guitar squeals decimated by bassist Max’s searing riffs. Giving us an ode to UNDEROATH with a cover of A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White, they raced into an obliterating performance of Rewriting Her Eulogy, the crowd properly into the swing of things with neck cracking headbangs. NEVERSAID bowed out on The Sound Of Skin Breaking, maintaining the energy of the room for headliners WREX.

By the time WREX took to the stage, half the support acts had hurriedly joined the audience (the rest still loading out their gear), showing themselves as industry colleagues and heartfelt fans as everyone moved straight into headbanging and jumping to quick-fire S.A.D., singers Mae Seaton and George Donoghue harmonising and trading off vocal sections whilst touring drummer Greg Walton locked in and looked thrilled to bring an onslaught of drum beats to Consume. The speed of the show continues to rocket onward on Vacant and The Noose, the wall of sound falling away briefly for the dual vocal breakdown and then flurrying back in.

Donoghue and Seaton stopped to give their appreciation and explain the origins of WREX as “two people with a laptop”, showcasing how far they've come with fan favourite, floor stomping Paranoia, switching up the beats to an industrial-rock drum beat and cacophony of nu-metal on Recovery. Frequent fans will know 111 sees Donoghue enter the crowd with his guitar and mic stand while Seaton and Walton tear up the stage, the explosive energy building as Donoghue encouraged a churning circle pit around him that saw their own photographer join in in delight.

As they settled the mic stand back on stage, Seaton gave a birthday shout-out to one of their friends who'd been expelling their energy through their set, before she threw herself into Heaven's Gate and held out the mic to their friend to yell into. With the amount of acrobatics they perform, you'd think by now the duo would be spent, and yet they came in renewed for Take A Walk. With a final thank you and promise to meet everyone after the show, they closed out with the roar of Paradise to huge applause. This tour is a symbol of their perseverance, their hard graft, their love for their growing fanbase. It’s certainly somewhere to begin, and what they do next can only get better.

Photos and words: Julia Stark