Live Review: LLNN - Rebellion, Manchester
27th November 2025
Support: Pupil Slicer, Worn Out
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
Thursdays evenings at Manchester’s Rebellion Music Bar with three awesome bands is starting to become a habit, what with Svalbard, Cage Fight and Knife Bride last week, and this week with LLNN, Pupil Slicer and Worn Out, it’s a fine habit to have picked up; and, looking at some of the familiar faces in the room, it seems they’ve got it too.
Cork hooligans, Worn Out use, as their intro tape, Peter Finch’s “I’m mad as Hell…” diatribe from Network, which sets up their abrasive metallic hardcore assault to a tee. Solid beats and two-steppin’ rhythms are the order of the day with Waste, blending the heaviest of metals with the hardest of cores. Miles Away sees singer, Xander heading into the crowd which, although started sparsely, is growing at a healthy rate. So much so that Xander’s next foray into the front of the crowd sees him held aloft during No Truth. It’s bassist Brian’s birthday today and it’s celebrated with a complete run-through of the band’s most recent release, the Low EP, which saw the light of day last summer and is four-tracks of edgy, uncomfortable riffs, sludgy vibes and chugging, head-bobbin’ guitar. Six-stringer, Alexander shows he has the skills, particularly in the closing song, Collapse, where raw aggression and virtuoso technique appear to collide.
With the scars of Svalbard’s end still healing, Pupil Slicer is here to remind us that there is still a healthy British Metal contingent out there. Though healthy might not be the correct word, as singer Kate has lost their voice, meaning there’re no clean vocals tonight, only anguished screams. Latest album, Fleshwork, has been in the shops for a few weeks now and the band open the show with Sacrosanct and Black Scrawl from that disc. Momentary Actuality from the sophomore, Blossoms, comes across like a fetid Black Metal classic, while the industrial sludge of the new record’s title track oozes with menace.
A quick bout of microphone maintenance makes things right again for the dark Rock n’ Roll vibes of Heather; No Temple brims with an urban attitude and an uncanny, MoRT-era Blut Aus Nord outro; debut fan favourites Martyrs and Husk take that dissonance to a further extent, pulling back only for the Death Metal rampage of Fleshwork’s Nomad. Calls for a circle pit are successful and fair-dos to Kate as they make an attempt to get themselves through the clean-vocal parts of Blossom. Leaving only the rampant charge of Wounds Upon My Skin, with its mid-song sludgy breakdown, allowing for some “high intensity pitting” at the end of a gruelling set.
The last time I saw Pupil Slicer they raged like a snorting bull, as angry as any band I’ve seen from whichever genre I could pick. Tonight, featuring a much-changed line-up, the aggression is still there, but seems to be more measured, more focused, like a boxer in the ring, red-hot physically, but with an ice-cool brain. Hopefully Kate’s voice is back soon, though its absence did not distract from the enjoyment of the set.
Fresh from a successful Night of Salvation appearance in 2024, Copenhagen’s sludgy, post metal destroyers, LLNN have their third album, 2021’s Unmaker, locked and loaded and ready to fire. The room goes dark and only a thunderous bass can be heard. First track proper, Imperial sets the scene for the rest of the show. Vast, cosmic sounding post metal vistas; percussion that beats you into next week, and a thick bass that is so low it rattles the building’s foundations. Desecrator and Obsidian demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of the band, with the former blasting through incandescent rage, as Obsidian oozes and slithers through slow and heavy percussion. To assist, Worn Out’s Xander joins the band on stage and adds his vocals to the mix.
The interlude, Vakuum, finds frontman, Victor Kaas laying down his guitar and leaving the band as a three-piece for Scion; he’s left alone on the stage for the first diversion away from Unmaker, in the form of the ambient The Horror, from the recent double-A-side split with Bristol band, Sugar Horse.
Theirs’ is a performance of brooding, crushing intensity, four musicians out to inflict sonic blunt force trauma in the form of auditory hellscapes. Interloper stomps, Division and Forger could be the sound of galaxies colliding, Tethers feels like it comes from the Abyss itself, filled as it is with cacophonous, demented screams. Yet the brief resolution of album closer, Resurrection, suggests there is some form of hope at the end of this perilous journey.
The combination of post metal with sludge and a smattering of hardcore allow LLNN to shatter expectations of how heavy can anything truly be. Bands like Conan and Godflesh must be feverishly scribbling notes as to how they can compete with this level of nihilistic savagery.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
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