Gig Review: A Place to Bury Strangers At The Dome (Upstairs)
A Place to Bury Strangers unleash an unrelenting sonic wall of noise that tears up Tufnel Park’s the Dome with few louder bands in the market, enlisting Die Anstalt fresh from the German Underground in tow.
Watching A Place to Bury Strangers is akin to being transported into the middle of a séance. An out-of-body, otherworldly experience that is propulsive, endearing and relentless, subjecting you to an unrelenting wall of sound for an hour that just does not let up no matter what you do. There are few bands like them – able to shake up their setlist on any given night and when they did a three-night residency the last time they were in London; I got the pleasure of catching the final night which was a real tour de force – my friends who went the first two only had good things to say. So tired and weary from End of the Road festival, a pitstop at The Dome was almost essential – and after the ascent upstairs, we were engrossed in their world.
Support came from German Band Die Anstalt who install a synth-laden sound and an angry, shouting rallying cry against the rise of AFD in Germany that feels frightening for anyone with a country especially given its history with the far right. To let the far right rise in Germany again fuels Die Anstalt with rage, and that propels Carmen Redeker through the setlist with unrelenting 80s electro that enables her to jump on top of someone’s head and is guided through the audience with sheer commitment. Their self-titled 2025 EP gets the bulk of the runout here – the synth punk bland being a real throwback to the old-school German underground punk scene whilst offering up something entirely new.
It’s confrontational that has earned them plenty of buss for their live shows; and as the first chance to see this band on UK shores, they certainly made as much as an impression on us as A Place to Bury Strangers – their unique post-punk blend with synth, early EBM and flashes of surf guitar really finds its own groove – ‘Kalter Schwiess (Cold Sweat)’ gets a runout and goes down a bomb – and rapidly relentless is very much the summary for the evening. When watching Die Anstalt it feels like I’m an 80s Cold War thriller walking into a late night seedy underground pub; think something directed by Michael Mann, Walter Presents’ ‘Deutschland 83’ or more recently, the tone of throwback David Leitch thriller ‘Atomic Blonde’.
Then it’s time for A Place to Bury Strangers, who propel you into their trance by not wasting too long on stage – it doesn’t take them long to thrust the drums into the mosh pit and the audience to gather around hypnotically. The sonic sound of A Place to Bury Strangers is led by Oliver Ackermann, who really finds a way to propel through the crowd with the ability to switch up the setlist every night so there’s every bit of a reason to come back again – the trip to Oxford later in the week at the time of writing looking incredibly tempting for this reason. They are loud, propulsive and powerful in equal measure – utterly unpredictable in every sense of the word.
The 2024 release ‘Synthesiser’ is best served the most as fans get to see a real treat of their unique style across their records – ‘Rare & Deadly’ really being that, it turns out. The core of ‘Bad Idea’ and ‘Have You Ever Been in Love’ are raw, unrelenting and searing in equal measure – and the real triumph of ‘I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart’ feels like a fantastic success – there’s no gap, there’s no break – the audience do not get the chance to come up for air once and that’s how A Place to Bury Strangers like it. It is a real test of unrelenting stamina and tour de force of energy – the band dipping into ‘Exploding Head’ to provide a real treat to long-term fans. Pretty much every core A Place to Bury Strangers record is mined from here – and you couldn’t be in better hands, even ‘You Are the One’ getting a run out as part of Worship,
The stage performance feels completely unhinged and wholly distinctive. The drums are relenting, a real work of art – they are the spectacle in A Place to Bury Strangers and Ackermann’s guitar is able to take a backseat for them when able, recognising their importance. I’d say A Place to Bury Strangers are probably the best noise rock band in the industry at the moment – and that hasn’t gone away since they formed out of New York City in 2002. You get the Wall of Sound that just offers up an unrelenting carnage – think more modern bands like Pneu as an example for who are doing similar things – and their ability to fuse this noise rock with shoegaze puts them in the I must see them live and I must see them live again category. Of course – there’s always Joy Division as a throwback – and The Soft Moon lay the groundwork. But there’s a touch of mean agenda to A Place to Bury Strangers that nothing really ever can compare to this band – they’re so wholly unique they’re on a different level. If you didn’t have earplugs before this gig you’d be needing them long before the first song started – as they are appropriately tinitius-inducing noise rock that have a shadow of Ministry to them in parts.
You’re watching the noisier, aggressive side of shoegaze here that shows the sheer depth and range of the genre. The perfect guitar effects work A Place to Bury Strangers’ set-list with gusto here – they dip into their 2007 debut album on ‘Ocean’ as the set-closer with rewarding effect that feels completely obliterating as a climax and as things go – and they’re a band that just cannot be missed in any shape or form. This is a kind of double pairing -with an opener from the talented Fat Concubine who I sadly missed – that fans will be talking about for years to come, especially once Die Anstalt explode into the Western European underground proper.
PHotography by Denise Esposito and Alice Teeple