Gig Review: MAQUINA At The Dome
You want to dance? Let’s dance – MAQUINA. might just be the coolest, noisiest band on the planet and this might be the most feral set you’ll see in 2026.
Lisbon noise/electronic rock outfit MAQUINA. are a band I’ve been wanting to see since they played their first UK gig in September 2024 up North at Newcastle’s the Lubber Fiend; and it’s immediately apparent that watching them is akin to a religious experience/healing process. You’re elevated beyond mortal means, into another frame of being the short sharp psych lyrics that really feels rooted in krautrock with enough dance-groove energy. The rapid-fire bass is electric, and the drums keep them moving throughout – just an endless, non-stop this is cool factor that commands you to embrace the groove; helped by the fact that this trio aren’t afraid to get down and dirty in the mosh and interact with their audience.
Earplugs are a requirement for a MAQUINA. show: it’s designed to be played loud. João (guitar), Tomás (bass), and Halison (drum and vox) have just played Great Escape and by all accounts; gone down well there. One of the best things about Great Escape is that it usually means artists like MAQUINA. are around at the same time as the festival in London and it’s another chance to catch your favourites or acts you missed the first time out – or indeed; catch up on the goodwill buzz of names coming out of the festival itself.
MAQUINA. were one of the eye-ballers, avant-garde, Dame Area-type (there’s a song with them on a new album); and they match their Catalan neighbours in sheer dance-ready, party vibes. It’s a late start: 9:30, but somehow this feels too early to watch them – clubbing into the night at 3am seems like the ideal place to watch MAQUINA. rather than the Dome – but it gives it a krautrock/metalhead-esque audience that keeps it there rather than say, the more dance-heavy halls of Heaven or Koko. This is the kind of music that is made for the underground and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The pacing is relentless, gritty and sharp with guitars and drums. Like Test Plan; MAQUINA. give vox duties to their drummer – and are just as loud and shouty but keep their bursts short and sweet. It’s music for the underground: organic dance with second-to-none live performances. The mosh pits are sweaty; steaming and even though we’re only on the edge the entire room feels baked in sweat only midway through the first song. It’s intense for a Wednesday night and the crowd give it their all. The roaring guitars and electronica that is injected into the set feels exhilarating and with no moment to really come up to breathe; you’re left trapped in a room with sheer energy.
This is a music for the darkness, this is music that makes you transcend any mortal plane. Bathing Suits; SILVERWINGKILLER, Sick Man of Europe, Dame Area; all fit those hypnotic club-type beats that have given new life into a techno-driven underground with a noise that rivals the likes of heavy bands. Each track is around the ten minute mark: they have two songs left by the track end; yet end up going almost til 11 when they look like they are about to wrap up at 10:30. My favourite from forthcoming Fuzz Club album ‘Body Control’ is ‘dança’ - their collab – with Dame Area live. Each track feels meticulously selected with club anthems in mind here – a real chance at experimentation. There’s also ‘pressure/pleasure’, which just builds and builds – repeating its titular track in bursts of distorted vocal samples and bass beats that just feel completely and utterly relentless.
The band allow themselves to act as an introspective into what it means to be alone at a club and dancing in a room of people that you don’t know and that is felt in tracks like the bluntness of ‘agony’, comparatively a short one at under three minutes. For those that have came solo you soon find that you don’t really care as the atmosphere is synchronised and people are dancing, moshing along – the frantic, high-tempo energy may not get a sold out room but it doesn’t need to be packed: people are enjoying themselves from the word go.
The wall of sound is immense, all-consuming, inescapable – the label Fuzz Club have found themselves another winner; operating in a unique European noise rock sphere that allows them to snap out simply the best artists on the continent and give them the spotlight that they need: and MAQUINA. might be the very best of them – an effortless cool that is captured from the moment you walk into the sweat-soaked Dome to the moment you leave; coming up; gasping for air.
Photography By: William Anthony