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They were in two bands together before Mr. Joel became famous, and briefly fell out over Mr. Joel’s affair with Mr. Small’s wife. Mr. Small later found success as a director of music videos and concert films.

Live Review: Drug Church – Gorilla, Manchester

7th September 2026
Support: Downward, Liquid Mike
Words: Matthew Williams
Photos: Tim Finch

Sometimes in life, the best nights out occur when you least expect it, and a Monday evening gig in Manchester, the day after coming back from holiday, was not one that I was immediately looking forward to. However, that all changed after watching over an hour of the mayhem and carnage caused by Albany, New York’s post hardcore band Drug Church. I knew very little about all 3 bands, as post hardcore isn’t my favourite genre but wow, what a show they put on at a sold-out Gorilla.

The night started with Michigan’s Liquid Mike, a quartet on their first ever tour of the UK. The rock band have a variety of good sounding songs, from “K2” to “Drowning Machine” and mix it up with synthesizers and a few trumpet sections from Monica Nelson. Vocalist/guitarist Mike Maple takes centre stage, and with plenty of vocal harmonies between the two, it’s an effortless performance, with fun visuals on the screen behind them, and I find myself nodding along. They have elements of wonderful melodies in songs such as “Crop Circles” and “AT&T” with rockier compositions being heard in “USPS” and the excellent “Hell is an Airport”. Let’s hope that they return soon.

I was somewhat indifferent on Oklahoma’s Downward, whose brand of alternative rock, didn’t really capture my attention on the evening. They offer lots of slow, rumbling noises, nice guitar harmonies and solid rhythms, but only get going sporadically. I don’t know enough about the band so might be doing them a great disservice, as some parts of their melancholy sombreness were enjoyable, but not memorable. When they do get heavier, it’s good to listen to, as they create tension and drama with subtle tempo switches and crushing musical crescendos, but these were all too infrequent for me.

With a disco song playing, the screen lights up with the Drug Church logo, and they walk onto the stage. Frontman Patrick Kindlon stands and says “Manchester, you know what to do, no encouragement needed” and with that, the chaos begins as they start with “Million Miles of Fun”. I’ve been to Gorilla more times that I care to remember, but I’ve never seen anything like this, it was sheer bedlam from start to finish and doesn’t ease up during “World Impact”.

Kindlon is a bundle of energy but informs us that doing two shows in one day at Leeds was “a bit rough of my voice” so wants us to help him out, which off course the packed, energetic crowd do in their robust manner. There are stage divers and crowd surfers galore, so much so that on times I struggle to see the band from my vantage point near the back, but this is a high energy show and “you have to feed the pit monsters” as they are whipped into a frenzy with the stunning “Slide 2 Me”.

Franklin informs us that he’s wearing a long sleeve shirt as he needs to “drop some weight” and wants to feel “physically exhausted” by the end of each show”. Even slower songs such as “Hey Listen” don’t deter the stage divers, as the band continues to pump out a metronomic sound that encourages further bedlam, especially during the superb “Demolition Man”. He asks for “a stupid circle pit for stupid people running round” and he gets it, before telling us a story about Deftones, which is richly applauded.

He wants more stage diving and gets it during “Learning to Speak British” as he queries some of our customs, especially when so many push back his offer of the mic and continue the stage onslaught. “Unlicensed Guidance Counsellor” keeps the energy high, as the band are giving it everything, with their tight powerful melodies exploding across the PA. “Sing along if you know it,

I could do with the help” the frontman politely asks before the anthemic “But Does it Work?” and he wants the crowd to “express yourselves” as that’s what “it’s all about at our shows”.

As they build towards the end of the show, there’s the slower, bass propelled “Tillary” which is full of melody as the non-weary punters grab the mic to sing the words, before they play the monstrous “Myopic”. This is one hell of a song, but they leave us after the thunderous “Weed Pin” which sees wave after wave of stage divers, people jumping all over the place as the venue becomes a room of frenzied, sweat drenched bodies. This was a performance that I won’t forget in a hurry, as it was truly epic and I’ve been converted into a Drug Church fan for life.

Photo credits: Tim Finch

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Veronica & the Dark Particles sound as though somebody fed a goth club into a deep-space transmitter, waited for the machine to malfunction, and discovered the malfunction had better bass than the original program. Initial Transmission, the Florida duo’s debut album, comes loaded with retro-futurist synths, rigid post-punk bass, hard electronic percussion, and Veronica Blak’s cool, velvet-toned delivery moving through the machinery with the calm of someone who has already seen the catastrophe beyond the airlock.

British composer Eniac Nine gives these eight tracks weight. The bass is thick without turning muddy, the drums land with mechanical discipline, and the synthesizers occupy a wide field that can suddenly feel enormous without losing definition. Blak sits removed from the center of the mix, suited to lyrics preoccupied with obsession, dread, distortion, paralysis, and the queasy suspicion that technology has learned more about us than we have learned about ourselves.

“Eniac Nine and I never worked together before but he brought me such a compelling collection of diverse tracks that the lyrics and melodies formed almost instantly in my head,” says Blak. “I like the unique sounds he crafts for each song like a spaceship door opening in Digital or Indian tabla inspired drums on Monster that you don’t hear in modern darkwave.”

Liquify begins with an electronic throb that feels clinical, almost chemical, its bass moving with the slow certainty of something spreading through the bloodstream. Small synthetic details hover around the beat while Blak’s voice supplies the human temperature, cool and controlled even as the arrangement grows more claustrophobic. Digital is stranger and more playful, crawling forward on a crooked, slinky rhythm that recalls Strange Boutique launched several thousand miles beyond Earth. Synthetic noises open and close around the song like mechanical doors, giving its groove the peculiar sensation of wandering through some abandoned pleasure station where the computers have kept the music running after the passengers disappeared.

Monster throws subtlety aside for speed and impact, propelled by tabla-inspired percussion, hard electronic drums, and one of the album’s biggest hooks. Blak rides above the commotion with enough authority to make the chorus feel ready for collective shouting in a packed club. Rumors lowers the temperature and gives anxiety room to multiply. Its slower movement produces a particular kind of paranoia, where every empty measure seems capable of concealing another piece of bad information. The scale feels enormous without sacrificing intimacy, turning private suspicion into something closer to societal collapse viewed through a bedroom window.

Dunes ventures much farther outside conventional darkwave coordinates. Strange synthetic tones, threatening low frequencies, and a cinematic sense of distance suggest some hostile future civilization whose architecture was designed without human comfort in mind. Lost retreats into more recognizably European coldwave territory, recalling Clan of Xymox and Lebanon Hanover through its severe bass movement and unusual pockets of echo. Voices and instruments seem displaced from one another, as though the song were being heard simultaneously from several adjoining rooms.

Then comes The Kiss, their treatment of The Cure’s 1987 classic, trimmed into a tighter form with an unexpectedly sharp pop instinct. Robert Smith’s original recording sprawls through obsession until guitar becomes nearly physical pressure; Veronica & the Dark Particles concentrate that fever into a more economical attack. The bass carries much of the psychological weight, while Blak approaches the lyric with a colder sensuality that makes its possessiveness feel calculated rather than delirious.

Closing track Rings widens everything again, bringing broad synthesizer passages and space-rock scale into the album’s final stretch. After seven songs spent probing machines, desire, fear, and psychological contamination, the record ends staring outward into an expanse too large to explain, sending its final signal into whatever might be listening.

Listen to Initial Transmission below and order the album here.

“I don’t like single sounds, I like to mix things together to intentionally create complex layers like stacking monosyths,” says Nine. “I write music almost daily, visualizing the texture of sound like a wave table. I don’t rely on samples or loops because I am compelled to craft a universe of unique elements.”

That philosophy explains why Initial Transmission works best when its surfaces collide: club music with gothic reserve, machine order with psychological unease, elegance with menace. Veronica & the Dark Particles have made a debut built for black rooms, highway drives after midnight, and the uneasy pleasure of dancing while the future looks increasingly untrustworthy.

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