Live Review: Guilt Trip - Electric Bristol 19/10/26
Through perspiration and perseverance, Guilt Trip have hand-crafted not only the perfect tour lineup but the perfect encapsulation of everything it means to exist within the hardcore ecosystem on their recent run of shows.
The Bristol date on this gigantic voyage across the UK and Europe was the final stop for the Manchester five-piece before heading out to the European mainland. This meant one thing and one thing only: energy, and boy did they have that in spades. This run of sets encapsulated a really magical and reflective moment, one that is often lost between the notes of riffs and the sweat of the pit. The hive-mind mentality of a hardcore show creates a perfect oneness between the stage and the crowd, regardless of status or celebrity within the genre; every show that graces that stage is met with the same feral adoration as the headliner, something that is often missing from music. This lack of ego and eccentricity allows for the real version of everyone to pour out, be it the bassist giving himself whiplash, the pit enforcer spin-kicking his way through the crowd or the guy at the back singing along; everyone expresses themselves in this beautifully cohesive manner for an entire evening of unpredictability and punishingly heavy music.
The first two support acts did a fantastic job of getting the room warm and immediately cutting the crowd off from the outside world. The second the lights dimmed and Long Goodbye took centre stage, that droning feedback awoke something within the stagnant crowd and encouraged vicious movement from bell to bell. They tore through songs from their entire catalogue, pushing the limits of what a human voice can do when it comes to gutturals, interwoven with the occasional message of deeply personal and scathing lyrical content, cutting through the sound almost as if it were unintentional, yet perfectly placed. The sound they cultivated was a spectacular assault on the senses and compiled a medley of stylings from surrounding hardcore genres to create a sound comprised of equal parts panic chord and panic attack, one that was perfectly summed up by the frontman proclaiming they were ‘commentators for violence’ as the rest of the band perpetually beat their instruments within an inch of their lives. The second band to set foot on stage was Sydney slugger, Justice for the Damned. Hailing from the very same scene that birthed the absolute powerhouse SPEED, Justice for the Damned showed us exactly why the Australian scene is so internationally revered, with their infinitely brutal and piercing slam style sowing the seeds of destruction from the get-go, all while being some of the most polite and friendly people you could ever meet. This feeling of oneness and connectivity was further exemplified with every band that passed as bodies piled into the front and added dense layers of sweat-laden steam to the air. This transfer of energy was a continual two-way street, as the more the band swung at the air and hammered their way through gliding pinch harmonics and dive bombs, the more the crowd two-stepped enough to shift a tectonic plate. Their breakdown and riff-heavy style was a perfect example of the way that each area of the world, right down to the city, changes the effect it has on the music that lives within it and Justice for the Damned could not have been a better choice to represent the other side of the world.
Our final opener also hailed from across the pond, bringing a patented rowdy and Americanised hardcore style from Texas, Judiciary. Often seen as the birthplace of the scene that has continued to spread its roots throughout the world, American hardcore has had plenty of time to grow and build its identity, and Judiciary feels like a current final product of this evolution; their tight and bludgeoning instrumentation leans perfectly into the cultivated emotional yet steadfast lyricism, and their live shows bring nothing but unfiltered violence and joy to a room. Judiciary pulled songs from each section of their catalogue to rally people to the dance floor for their full thirty-five-minute set and did so effortlessly. While it is evident that insurmountable amounts of care went into the structuring of the performance, everything seemed to flow as if it were simply the natural order of the energy being thrown at the crowd. The varying international styles made a real impact on my perception of the wider scene, as it truly promotes the togetherness that hardcore brings: no matter where you’re from or how you got here, in these walls you belong. Each musical style forms a sort of accent around its instrumentation and is a real part of the reason that these bands represent their local scenes till their dying breaths, and no one does this better than our headline band.
Guilt Trip have been a long-standing bastion of British and particularly Northern hardcore for a reason now, that being their unrelenting passion and love for their scene, and every local scene around the world. Guilt Trip feel like a true international ambassador of the genre and could not be any more real if they tried. This deep and intrinsic honesty has led to not only some of the best hardcore projects from the UK to date but also an absolute explosion in popularity over the last 3 years. They have firmly grasped this surge in popularity and used it to put on some terrifyingly high-octane performances, but also to carry their home colours everywhere they go and preach the power of supporting local bands and helping our scene flourish and continue to be the place that everyone deserves. Be it band member or crowd member, everyone in that room is just as important as each other, and Guilt Trip wear this with pride. This pride pours into their performance, creating that aforementioned hive mind of you jump, I jump, allowing them to make the night exactly what they want it to be, and that almost always ends with mosh pits and a powerhouse performance.
Opening their first half of the set with some new tracks from ‘Armour of Angels’, the crowd immediately picked up what the band were putting down and wasted no time in beating the life out of each other; the incessant calls for more destruction and energy throughout tracks like ‘One By One’ and ‘Burn’ helped to propel the crowd past excited and into pure pandemonium. Every element of their performance right from the off was delicately perfected; being this far into a tour, Bristol truly got Guilt Trip at their best, with the drumming and rhythm sections intercutting perfectly with the shared vocal parts and the disgustingly intense lead lines that continually poured from Sam Baker and Jak Maden; this only amplified itself the further through the tracklist they went. It was great to see that the new material is excellently received by the crowd, as they have remained true to their roots of writing songs you can hurt your friends to, whilst also gaining more artistic licence and creative ingenuity as time has passed. The long run of songs from their 2023 album ’Severance’ also helped whip the crowd into a frenzy early on, with the album’s title track and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ being tremendous standouts from the opening half of their set.
As the set ran on and the band continued to hypnotise with their monolithic instrumentals, Guilt Trip took the time over and over again to the security and venue staff, as well as convincing wary crowd members to rep their local scenes and show them what Bristol was all about. As it became clear that there would be no encore and that they would continue on this all-out tirade, many people stepped up to the challenge, creating this new and anxious energy of excitement and an unforgettable experience. This energy was kept alive with innumerable bangers from the back catalogue, including ‘Guilt Trip’ and ’Unrelenting Force ’, before signalling the end with ‘The Banner of Heaven’. Finally, it was time for the definitive crowd favourite ‘Thin Ice’. Rarely has a crowd reacted in such an animalistic manner to a track announcement, but the second that Jay Valentine stepped off of that stage and met the crowd at the barrier, an eruption of limbs and crowd surfers reverberated through the entire crowd, from the sound desk to the very front; everyone was moving in vibrant elation and using the space to do exactly what they needed it to do for them. As the house lights came on, every crowd member either picked their jaw up from the floor or panted in unison after leaving both their hearts and their lungs on the venue floor.
Having shown the true joy and power of the hardcore scene at full force, Guilt Trip reminded everyone in that room that this very unique, very alive, very tangible thing is something that we all have in our home town, be it in a dingy back room, a run-down pub, or a venue like Electric. You can engage with hardcore at every level and Guilt trip, and everyone that they brought along for the ride have undoubtedly reminded countless individuals with a two-step-sized hole in their hearts that it can be filled through the power of very shouty music.
Words by Josh Pook
