Live Review: Grind Before Death - The Alma Inn, Bolton
28th February 2026
Featuring: Golem of Gore, Vast Slug, Mordhau, Nagasaki Birth Defect, Dreor
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
Turning on to Bradshawgate I’m greeted by the sight of a full-blown fun fair, which leads me to think one of three things to be true: a) Grind Before Death has gone all Download Festival and put on extra-musical entertainment for the kids; b) that I’ve walked into a sort of Something Wicked This Way Comes type thing; or, and bear in mind it’s still February at this point, c) the good people of Bolton are nuttier than squirrel poop and will do anything not to have to endure Saturday night television.
As the warm-up to May’s Grind After Death, this curtain-raiser to the 2026 festival season takes place inside the almost two-hundred-year-old Grade 2 listed Alma Inn, with half the room given over to the stage and the other to punters. The reason for the Grade 2 listing is due to a large and historic fireplace and range, which just so happens to be in the area allocated to the audience. Heritage England may well be having an aneurism later when the pit gets feisty.
The carnival is in full swing across the road when Nottingham trio, Drēor take to the stage with their unsettling fascination with both cooking and death metal. It’s a recipe – pardon the pun – for disaster combining those two, I’m sure. Early on the band create some brooding atmospherics with groove and melody on openers, Living Cadaver and Three-Man Roast, the latter indulging itself in some serious cymbal abuse. Newbie, The Portal comes with some virtuoso bass tapping and a crawling creepy a feeling of dread, while older tune, 2023’s Buried, from The Terror Rises EP, is surprisingly sedate for such an evening as this.
Blood & Bourbon has some serious old school death metal energy and inspires the evening’s first participation in the form of a jaunty jig from a solitary attendee. Primitive Beatings hits with a blast of punk vigour, and set closer, Pan-Fried Man rumbles low and has a progressive vibe. Grind Before Death is up and running.
Fellow east-Midlanders, Nagasaki Birth Defect, have a more direct grinding approach, but the presence of Jags Zangief – sporting a guitar so complex looking that you’d be best off trying to suss out the workings of a fusion reactor – means there’s a fair amount of technicality to be found. Boasting just a single full-length, the 2015 self-titled, you may think NBD would base their set largely around that material, but no! Early on we get a host of tunes not on the debut: State Enforced Euthanasia, Victim Mentality, and Fuck Off with Your Witchy Bullshit blast and rage as good old-fashioned grind should. A small room in a pub and a bunch of rabid maniacs is just what the Dr ordered.
Just Stop Being a Cunt pretty much says everything it needs to in its title; Take Your Stupid Gimmick and Kindly Fuck Off and an untitled new tune tease another record, though the leaking of a previous recording seems to have soured that idea. Shotgun Blast Castration and the idea of feeding wrong ‘uns through a woodchipper on Woodchipper Death Sentence seems to get tacit approval around the Alma; Cycle Paths are to Blame and Spin Kicks Are For Cunts are big ticks from me. Jag's “Thar she blows” intro to A Day at the Beach is the first of just three songs from 2015, the other two arriving at the close: Oxygen Thief and Fuck! end the set of blitzkrieg grinders played at a rip-roaring pace. Someone calls for Deicide’s Lunatic of God’s Creation, but the guitars have been unstrapped by that point.
Not to be confused with the US Black Metal band of the same name, Nottingham's Mordhau find themselves in the usual position of replacing Dychosis, who themselves were replacements for Repel. All that really matters is Mordhau is here and ready to take on Bolton. You can tell before a note had been struck that this is going to be a trip down Memory Lane with the strapping on of a Flying-V guitar. It’s a gothic sounding build up then straight into Bereft of Rotting Flesh from the band’s sole album, 2020’s Immaculate Massacre. Machine gun riffing fires the crowd into life and puts that fireplace in mortal danger. Marc Hoods choppy barks go directly into the faces of the front row, Temporal Insanity comes with the incessant toiling of a bell, and it appears the band have their very own cheerleader, who’s perched on the lip of the stage for the duration.
It’s rapidly becoming a full-contact environment in the pit, bodies slamming into each other with reckless abandon, yet it’s safe as houses in there; good friendly violent fun, as Exodus once said and the ladies are certainly holding their own in this battle of the sexes. Through Religion Denied, Duty Be Done and set closer, Pig Society, the floor is a mass of colliding figures, with not a single person willing to quit before the band run out of time and the curtain is drawn on the show. ‘Tis but a temporary ceasefire, with hostilities to be resumed upon the arrival of the next band.
That next band is Norwich grinders, Vast Slug, whose thirty-track debut album, Driving Music, was one of the finest slabs of extremity in musica from last year, in my humble opinion. Former Nervewrecker vocalist, Ed Bell, compares the Slug’s set with the perfect amount of confrontation, both to the music and the crowd. Early tunes include the minute-long Flat Earth Fuckwit, You Don’t Believe in the Theory of Evolution So I Hope the Theory, and You Act Like Butter Wouldn’t Melt, Bitch. Ed calls Bolton, Bristol, much to the chagrin of the locals, dedicates Your Boyfriend has a Micro-Penis to the Annotations of an Autopsy guitarist, Sean Mason – maybe beef, maybe an East Anglia thing…
Further colourful subject areas getting the Vast Slug treatment today come in the form of Chris Beniot’s Family Values, Phillip Schofield is a Fucking Nonce, and Harold Fish N’ Chipman; and Lolita Express: Under 16’s Fly Free couldn’t be more current if it tried. The crowd are strangely subdued early on, but that changes after a cajoling from Mr Bell, which seems to whip them back into the Mordhau frenzy of earlier. You’re a Fucking Cunt is dedicated to Dani Filth, there’s a cover of Napalm Death’s You Suffer and the set closes with a ride with the Vengaboys.
The pit gets fierce, putting the blood pressure of any English Heritage officer through the roof; there’s the smallest of circle pits and it all ends with Ed recommending we check out the band on “MySpace, or wherever.” The Slug play the role as special guest to perfection, cranking the enjoyment level to the maximum, yet leaving the crowd with just enough energy for the headliner.
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
As the final notes fade, so too does the opening shots of the 2026 festival season. The main Grind After Death event takes place on 30 May 2026, out in the main arena – aka, the beer garden - which will play host to Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition, DeathCollector, Berenice and many more. Celebrating the festival’s fifth anniversary, if this warm-up show – and last year’s event – is anything to go by, then that is one not to miss.
Will the fun fair be there? Who knows… if Michael McIntyre or Ant & Dec are on the telly that night, it could be a real possibility.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
