LIVE REVIEW: Teenage Wrist, Mouth Culture, Paerish, Oslo, Hackney, 13/12/2023

Photo Credit: Kevin O’Sullivan

Although it is one of the lesser-known venues in the nation’s capital, the Oslo in Hackney boasts the exact kind of atmosphere you would want for tonight’s show. The bohemian feel of the bar downstairs coupled by the intimate venue upstairs is the perfect place to showcase one of the alternative rock scenes best kept secrets.

Opening the show tonight are Mouth Culture. The Leicester lads know that this tour is a chance to show a wider audience exactly what they can do, and they grab at that opportunity with both hands. Their emotive brand of indie rock gets the crowd on side early doors, with the band clearly having a following in the city themselves. As the band grow into their set the energy from the stage picks up and the crowd quickly reciprocate. By the end the group have done their job and got the crowd going early doors, having made a few new fans in the process. 7/10

Paerish then take to the stage heaviness dials up a notch with the massive wall of distorted guitars and ethereal leads. The Frenchmen have a penchant for mixing the heaviness with a melancholic take on melody. Instantly they are a hit with the crowd, who stand in awe and watch what is happening with wide eyes and open mouths. The choruses are catchy, the instrumental is well crafted, and the energy is high. These are all the things you would want to see from a modern gaze-adjacent band. This is the perfect support set for the event, with Paerish stepping up to the plate and smashing it out of the park. It goes without saying that a lot of people in the crowd tonight will be making a note of the name and adding them to their various playlists. Superb. 8/10

Tonight is Teenage Wrist‘s first ever headline tour and tonight in London also just so happens to be the first sold-out show of the tour and immediately you get a feeling that this set is going to be special as the boys fly into an opening combo of Sunshine and Dark Sky from their latest album Still Love to a great reception. The vocals from Anthony Salazar are as clean and powerful as they sound on the album and the melodies soar over the top of the heavily distorted guitars wonderfully.

The boys then roll out the first song from their classic Chrome Neon Jesus in the form of Swallow and the fans react accordingly, singing every word back towards the stage emphatically.

By the time the boys get to Humbug the room feels extremely hot, but this doesn’t stop the crowd from participating with everything they’ve got. All of the new material seems to be going over well and the fact that this is the only the group’s second appearance in London in their entire career is not lost on any of their adoring audience as they lap up every last moment.

Taste Of Gasoline is one of the real highlights of the set, with the song holding one of the most infectious choruses the band has penned to date whilst in the contrast the bridge is one of the heaviest instrumentals in the bands catalogue. The boys then go back into Chrome Neon Jesus album for mass singalong on Stoned, Alone providing another memorable moment for the onlookers to relish with the entire room once again singing the songs back towards the stage.

All of the tracks that the boys pull from the Earth Is A Blackhole album go down a treat and Yellowbelly is no different. It goes to show you just how strong the material is on that album and when the tracks are perform to this kind of high standard it really is dizzying for a fan to watch.

The sign of a good new album is when the songs fit into the setlist seamlessly and that is certainly case with Still Love, with Diorama and Cigarette Two-Step both being perfect testaments to that fact. With the slower pace of the former track giving a little respite from the now sweltering condition of the room, getting the crowd sway along to the infectious vocal melody and the latter providing one of the real headbanging moments of the evening with its chunky riffs and emphatic delivery.

By the time the band get to the closer of Earth Is A Black Hole the capacity crowd has reached fever pitch. The band have come here for their first ever sold-out headline show in England and have more than delivered. As they leave the stage, the sense of occasion is impossible to ignore and by the looks of the crowds faces they cannot come back soon enough to do it all over again. 9/10

Written By: Richard Webb