Live Review: Machine Girl, aya, Goreshit | O2 Kentish Town Forum, London | 27/01/2026
Machine Girl return to London to continue their hardcore rave hybrid; with aya and Goreshit bringing the same level of intensity.
Goreshit
Ruining the perception that opening acts shouldn’t go as hard as possible (which is an impressive achievement considering the rest of the bill) Goreshit hits with near unrelenting breakcore intensity. More than just the atmospheric jungle styling that are popular on TikTok, this was breakcore in the style of taking rave culture and the hardcore dance continuum and putting it through a blender, slowly turning up the speed while looking back for approval.
Performing with finger drumming athletics over the traditional DJing, Goreshit is breakcore at its most raw & primal, and it got the kids jump styling. Towards the end of the headline set there were violent threats towards anyone that reviewed Goreshit from Machine Girl, so keep that in mind.
aya
Opening the set by addressing the crowd with a dismissive “you lot are enthusiastic, I see what we’re working with”, aya continued the night’s sonic abrasiveness. Opening with a one two punch of “I am the pipe I hit myself” with from hexed!, one of Noizze’s albums of 2025 and “Leftenant Keith” from recent EP lip flip, this felt closer to a victory lap around one of the biggest academy venues in London than trying to warm up or win over a crowd. Waves of feedback, digital clipping and distortion, and a set with less trauma, more gabba and same amount of time signatures designed for the Machine Girl crowd who’d cheer at anything. Spending half the time using the tech desk for controllers and half using it as a performance platform and somewhere to jump off of, the strobes only added to the stage work. Getting cut off before being able to play “off to the ESSO”, there was no fanfare to end with. After the past 30 or so minutes, there didn’t need to be.
Machine Girl
Machine Girl are now a rock band. Having now been a three-piece for the last 18 or so months of touring after adding Lucy Caputi on guitar, they have a real acoustic heft to them compared to their earlier iterations. There are still their backing tracks, but the amps are on stage, moving air. This is not a polite amp modeller affair.
Touring off the back of their most recent album PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X, the set opened with the first three tracks of the album. The set is relentless, there are few breaks between songs, and the crowd was liquid from almost the first note. With drummer Sean Kelly switching between covering the chopped breaks of machine girl past and the skate punk & d beats of machine girl present, there were many moments that wouldn’t be shocking to see at a crust punk/raw punk gig, if you ignore the synths on the backing tracks and the brightly coloured clothing in the crowd. Despite coming from playing similar basement shows that the aforementioned genres thrive in, the sound of the set was considerably washed out. Although the crowd was loving it there was some confusion in the details of what was played, even for the most die hard fans.
Despite the overall rockiness of the set, the dancier cuts made the crowd explode even more. The three hit combo of “BULLET HELL”, “Cicadas” and “Grindhouse” energised the crowd to new levels, and there was not a static body in the house.
By the end, lead singer Matt Stephenson (dressed in a distressed Abolish ICE t shirt) spent more time in the crowd than on the stage. This is not polite music, it exists to make you move, and the band themselves are not immune to that either.
