Over the past 6 or so weeks, I've made a deliberate effort to scope out and watch as many shows in the surrounding area as possible. I absolutely love discovering new music and new bands to champion and when I first heard about a metal show in my hometown of Widnes my eyes were truly opened to the prospect of frequent trips to local pubs to watch some of the brightest and talented bands Liverpool and the surrounding area has to offer. I’ve swapped the bright lights, big city vibes of Manchester’s jam-packed calendar of metal titans for the small, intimate, under the radar gigs of bands I'm unfamiliar with and it has been much more enjoyable than I could have ever imagined. Tonight’s trip out was to Runcorn to see 2023 Metal To The Masses Liverpool entrants, Ogun supported by an insanely talented undercard comprising of Punk, Classic Rock and Pop infused Metal. An eclectic mix and then some.  

There's no two ways about it, first band, Inhuman Remains know what they are, and they are what they know. This was pure punk and nothing else. Punk has a special place in my heart that not many other genres have. It’s a genre that I deeply love, however may not go back to as much as I would for other genres I love, such as Americana, Pop or Hip Hop, however there is a deliberate reason for this. My Punk listening time is reserved for when I need that boost of energy or morale or when I just need my mood lifting a bit. There is nothing out there in any genre of music that is as impactful to me as the gang vocal chorus of a punk song. Inhuman Remains absolutely perfected this punk formula. It was raw, scrappy, unfiltered, grab a pint and put your arms around your mates' shoulders and just belt it out type music and was absolutely superb. Bassist/Vocalist Tink is both an absolute character and a brilliant lyricist, perfectly encapsulating the social/political anger that runs deep through the veins of punk whilst also providing a true level of authenticity which automatically made me hang on to and believe every word he was singing; rather than writing lyrics that fit a checkbox of common tropes like I have seen from other bands in the past. I will definitely be taking as many opportunities as I can to see Inhuman Remains as I can, if they’re around the Merseyside area again, I will most certainly be there. 

My favourite thing about second band The Revenants was that they didn’t give a fuck, and I mean that in the best possible way. Most bands in their early days are still ironing out the kinks, working on crafting their art, refining their live sound and discovering themselves as a band. The Revenants however, thought “nah bollocks to all that, we’re gonna do it our own way”. Despite being born out of the ashes of a post pandemic world, The Revenants seemed to have a mature and knowledgeable understanding of what makes the perfect Classic Rock show, one that is well beyond their years. We got the signature blues heavy inspired riffs, the massive singalong chorus’s, the brilliantly self-indulgent guitar solos, character from all three members of the band and a hell of a lot more, of which I will get onto later.

At one point in the set, Vocalist and Guitarist Jim D decided that he wanted his own Angus Young, ‘Let There Be Rock’, Donington 91’ moment and performed a 4/5-minute guitar solo, covering every single ounce of The Alchemy Pub. Usually I would scoff at such audacity, but it was brilliantly tongue in cheek, and I found it as much hilarious as it was completely and utterly entertaining. Eventually, the band had to actually be told that they only had one more song left, and I get the feeling that without this little nudge, they probably would’ve played for as long as they wanted.

If there was one thing I'd say about the set as a whole that may detract from this, is that it was a bit here and there at times. Whilst predominantly being a classic rock show, there was a number of different influences thrown about here and there, Grunge, Punk, Blues, all made an appearance, however they were often reserved for entire songs. We’d go from a punk song, to a bluesy song, to a grungey song.  This was the ‘hell of a lot more’ I referred to previously, and whilst they were by no means bad songs, they at times made the set feel a bit disjointed. However, The Revenants are a young band, and a massively talented band, so it would be expected that they are still developing a niche. Once they find a way to take all of these different sounds and ideas, and sculpt them to create that perfect combination, then transpose that into their wildly entertaining live show, they may be well and truly onto something, something remarkable at that – and I think they’re more than capable of unlocking this potential.  

The third band of this four-band bill DAM.G brought the room back into 2023 with their modern and contemporary take on pop infused metal. What is most striking about DAM.G is the sheer amount of power they have on vocals. When it comes to dual vocalists, there is usually a disparity between the cleans and the heavy vocals. They are often to separate entities vying to leave their stamp on a song, without ever really complimenting each other on a sonic level. This however is not the case with DAM.G, they are a genuine dual threat. Heavy Vocalist Tom has an authentic aggression and superb technique however the true star of the show was clean vocalist LXS. DAM.G have struck absolute gold with her as a vocalist as she has a stupidly powerful voice that can make a small pub in the middle of Runcorn sound like Wembley Stadium. It helps their cause massively that most of the songs DAM.G tonight were absolute earworms. They had this fantastic R&B/Pop Element to them, reminiscent of Bands like Nightlife who are currently destroying the Baltimore Music Scene with a similar blend of infectious R&B hooks, albeit leaning towards the more pop, funk side of things and reserving their metal influences on a solely musical level. On the contrary, DAM.G instead keep it approximately 50/50 when it comes splitting the vocal duties, except for one song in particular, ‘Times Gone, So Am I’, which is predominantly led by LXS with Toms heavy vocals being used to create a sense of atmosphere at the back of the mix, rather than having its own identity in the song. The reason I brought this song up in particular is because it genuinely (despite being released in 2021) may be the best song I've heard this year, both live and on record. I’m often sparing with hyperbole as I think that recency bias can still be in the back of someone's mind and creep into opinion, over time ruining the integrity of a piece of work, however i’ve pondered this statement for a few days, and my thoughts behind it haven’t changed – it's been on repeat none stop ever since. This set was absolutely impeccable and was dying to break out into bigger rooms to bigger crowds of people. 

Before they started, I kind of felt a little bit for Ogun. For one reason or another, it was north of 11pm by the time that Ogun even began getting set up for their set. The performance by DAM.G felt like the true headline performance of the night in terms of crowd size as the room was pretty empty following this, despite their still being one band left to perform. I first saw Ogun only one week prior to the writing of this review, at the second heat of Merseyside’s edition of the Metal To The Masses competition (Review Here). I instantly became hooked to Ogun's no frills, no bullshit Thrash and as an effect of this, I fell back in love with Thrash in general. Fast forward 7 days later and I get to relive this set for the second time – and I must admit, I thought they were even better than they were the week prior. Despite them being against the odds, a smaller crowd, a smaller venue, fewer stakes at play, Ogun just got on with it and played their shit. I think part of the reason I enjoyed this set more is because the sound was absolutely impeccable at Alchemy. Everything was perfectly balanced, no one sound was overbearing, and as a result of this, Ogun sounded absolutely massive.

As musicians they are incredibly competent, they were as tight as anything and their song structuring was sublime, each individual band member was given their own chance to shine throughout the set but it was never done in a way that seemed forced, there was no stop in the flow of the music to allow their individual strengths to shine, it was instead done in a way that made perfect sense in the context of each song. Much like Inhuman Remains, Ogun know what they like and know what they are as a band. I’ve said this time and time about thrash but there is this brilliant, infectious nature about it that I cannot fathom. It gets under your skin like no other metal sub-genre can and provides enough twist and turns to both surprise and stun the listener, there’s just nothing else like it. Ogun’s performance was a 30/40 minute love letter to this genre and it was absolutely superb. 

As an overall evening, I had an absolute blast at The Alchemy. Many of my own musical itches were scratched, Inhuman Remains provided with my own personal Punk catharsis, The Revenants entertained the life out of me, DAM.G gave me my next band to keep a keen eye on and Ogun ignited my own love for Thrash Metal. All of this for a little bit more than the cost of a pint. You just can’t beat it.  

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Ogun, DAM.G, The Revenants, Inhuman Remains