Better Lovers/Frontierer/Greyhaven – Academy 3, Manchester – 19/01/25 (Live Review)

Now this is a lineup. All three bands I’d go and see in their own right, let alone all touring together. Tonight I feel like I’m in for a real treat. Morale is high as I enter the Academy 3, and it’s about to get a whole lot of busy.

Greyhaven

Greyhaven narrowly missed out on the very top spot of my 2022 end of year list with the fantastic This Bright and Beautiful World, so I’ve been very excited to see them tonight. Touring on the back of their latest EP Stereo Grief, (five songs that bode very, very well for the future), tonight they do not disappoint me. They even play my favourite song from the EP – Sick and Lavish. Top stuff.

Greyhaven are animated throughout their set, and the singer’s formidable set of lungs is more than capable of delivering the material. I feel like he should be out of breath all of the time, but obviously, (and thankfully), this isn’t the case.

Greyhaven are surely stars in the rising. Plenty of others have arrived in time to see them too, and it is soon well and truly packed. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve seen such a positive reaction to an opening band. They deserve all of it of course, and I hope they’ll be back in the future.

Frontierer

And now for something truly heavy. Frontierer are harsh, angular, and crushing. Tonight their devastating mathcore violence is on fire.

If it was packed for Greyhaven, it’s positively jammed for Frontierer. The band get a great reaction. Although the music is so jagged and barbed it’s hard to always move in a consistent way to it, this is no bad thing. Sometimes all you can do is just absorb the sheer aural punishment Frontierer dish out, and let your body react however it may. None of this stops the pit from igniting and reigniting at various times.

Frontierer bring a raw intensity to the venue that’s nonetheless technically sharp. They radiate energy, with a infectious aggression that damn near brings the house down. The singer and both of the guitarists descend into/onto the crowd at different points, inciting the audience further.

A sonic masterclass in atypical heaviness, and also strangely life affirming. Who knew?

Better Lovers

With current/ex-members of Every Time I Die, Fit for an Autopsy, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, Better Lovers were always destined for my ears. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out the band’s debut album Highly Irresponsible from last year.

If Frontierer was jammed, Better Lovers is absolutely bursting. It’s cold outside, but roasting hot in here. A soon as the band hit the stage, after an overly long intro tape, the crowd reaction is immediate and sustained. The audience rarely stop moving. Crowd surfing is a frequent activity and the security guards are kept busy. The band’s volatile presence is explosive. They give a livewire performance and the atmosphere in the venue is electric. The band are clearly loving every minute of it.

With the right combination of barely controlled chaos and song-friendly choruses, their set was always going to be a success. Better Lovers take the sort of energy that Frontierer radiated and turn the dial all the way up. The show ends with the vocalist singing on top of the crowd, because of course it does.