Live Review: Death Goals, Vicarage, Cainhurst and Family Portrait | The Crofters Rights, Bristol | 09/05/2023

Cainhurst

“Don’t be scared, we’re just gay as fuck”, cite Cainhurst, prior to them delving onto a set of chaotic screamo so damn raw that Gordon Ramsey would be immediately sent into anaphylactic shock should he be presented with it. Feverishly convulsing through a set of abrasive noise so violent that they make For Your Health seem like tepid easy listening, Cainhurst’s set is one of authentic agony and dysmorphia.

With each member of the band existing somewhere on the trans spectrum, the collective take a plethora of genre conventions ranging from mathcore to screamo and even powerviolence prior to amalgamating them to ruminations on body dysmorphia, pain and systematic queer erasure. However, what makes this set truly startling is the level of intensity and conviction within Cainhurst’s live presence. Every howl, panic chord and request for violence is delivered with the sense of genuine authenticity that can only come from lived in experiences. The final song of the truly presents this in a way that’s genuinely intimate to the point of borderline discomfort. Written and performed in memory to the late great scene legend Ryan Chisholm on the anniversary of their passing, the song is delivered with a sense of emotional purity so genuine it’s impossible to be touched, stirred or moved to actual tears. Genuinely, it’s a moment so emotionally intense and void of any fakery, and as the Cainhurst finish openly weeping, it’s strikingly clear and paramount that this band live to the spread their message of trans liberation and community love with full realness.

Vicarage

Initially, it may appear that Vicarage may be the odd one out on this evening’s lineup. With their peers tonight utilising hardcore and punk dynamism in order to present tales on queer issues and personal experiences navigating such respective issues, Vicarage’s offering of extreme post metal and blackened hardcore, could – by some – be described as somewhat ill-fitting. However, as the quintet plunge into their set, it’s clear no complaints will be expressed. Across the 30 or so minutes that consist of their set, the band deliver thunderous, apocalyptic and downright annihilating extreme metal that sounds akin to a field recordings of the first circle of Hell.

With motifs comparable to the likes of Cult Leader, END and Conjurer aplenty, the band’s appearance is haplessly enjoyable to anyone with a passion for progressive dense nihilism and musical inhospitality; something that’s clearly a common interest in this room tonight. Truly, with the band’s musical tightness on par with their evident inspirations aforementioned, it’s impossible not be enthralled and then annihilated by the band’s supernatural inspired craft this evening – or at least find it fully enjoyable. There may be a plethora of bands in the UK expunging the depths of metallic intensity as of late, but going from this set, it’s clear Vicarage are well on their way to gaining a position amongst the elites of the genre.

Death Goals

Given how the inhabitants of The Crofters Rights have endured approximately two and half hours of musical punishment prior to tonight’s headliner taking to the stage, one may assume and forgive Bristol for leisurely enjoying Death Goals whilst nursing a quiet drink. But alas, as the duo dive into ‘Genderless Clones Of Gameshow Hosts’ and the musical panic attack that is ‘Shrike’, there’s nothing but two-stepping and haymakers to be had. Delivering a set more or less perfectly balanced between 2021’s The Horrible And The Miserable and their brilliant second LP A Garden Of Dead Flowers, Death Goals present themselves as a physical manifestation of their music – chaotic, frantic, intense, self-destructive, violent. But above all else, inclusive and accepting.

As the two piece thrash and thrall through the likes of ‘A Different Type Of Headache’, ‘Faux Macho’, ‘OK-SAD’ and “Helen Keller Is Teaching Me How To Talk To Boys’ – complete with that ignorant breakdown and all – Death Goals are a whirlwind of violence both physically and sonically. As George Milner bludgeons the drums to an inch of their material life, Harry Bailey spends the set pouncing around the room, trailing their own guitar and mic stand behind them in the process. Granted, it’s easy to see why many within this room stick to the walls – least they be cast aside in Harry’s wake – for the fashion in which Death Goals as a duo present their tales of body dysphoria, nationalised xenophobia and heartbreak is just as physical as it is musical tonight. There’s absolutely no respite to the had in this set, just pure and authentic violence and righteous rebellion presented in a way that’s intense as it is tangible.

But amidst the two-stepping and the one-person melee that Harry takes form as, there is inclusivity and acceptance. As the band declare themselves, this set and tonight as a whole is an event for the theys, thems and queers in attendance. Musical and physical violence aside, this a space where those discriminated against for their gender and sexual orientation can rally against the unjust powers that be together as a tightly bound collective. That in turn, makes tonight an evening of utmost catharsis. Frankly and simply, even whilst Death Goals present music that is truly the sound of pure fucking misery, this evening is one bound by love and community, and as the band ring out the set with ‘P.A.N.S.Y’ with violence aplomb, it’s hard to think of a band that can deliver as much bile as they do love. Queercore forever indeed.