Tramhaus - Blister Review
Tramhaus show their continued evolution as a band and superb growth on Blister, one of 2026’s best post-punk records
There are few bands that have been as entertaining and continuously evolving as Tramhaus. I first saw them at Rich Mix in May 2025, sharing the stage with Honk. They’re now back at Electric Brixton, supporting Irish post-punk band Gurriers. Right from the off, you can see why Gurriers got Tramhaus as their support. The industrial post-punk sound is very evident across this beloved Netherlands band, following on from The First Exit, built on eighteen months of constant touring before they eschewed the grind of the pit for Belgium’s Ardennes forest with producer Floyd Aterna. It’s worked, and the result is a heavy formula taken and pushed, reinvented in bold new ways.
To experience Tramhaus is to experience a sound like no other. A kinetic, whirlwind blaze from start to finish that kicks in and doesn’t let up with a steady, hypnotic beat. ‘Plovdiv’ is a delight, riff-driven, chaotic and more sprawling, with the band, now one album deep and experienced on the live circuit, feeling like they can take risks. It’s a band that feels at home with, say, krautrock, the relentless walls of sound adding extra depth to a traditional post-punk record, or psychedelic rock, and there are flashes of the Windmill scene here, with bursts of something that you’d probably see on a Thursday night at Strongroom Bar or The Old Blue Last. It feels like a tour epilogue song, the kind that bands put out to celebrate a lengthy Euro tour and the friends made along the way, and it really shines.
Launching into tracks like ‘Cluster’, with its steady, low-hum marching beat opening before the lyrics kick in like you’re walking through the smog and fog of gritty post-war Northern docklands, you embrace the chills that come with it. It’s morbid, it’s fascinating, you see it hurl with grit and anguish. ‘The Answer?’ follows next, propulsive and fast, like a Wax Head song in places, relentless and alluring. There are touches where it goes noisier, like Prostitute, never afraid to tap into the noise-rock chaos when it needs to, operating in that scene. Caustic and raw yet intricately technical, there are multiple tracks that practically command a pit to swirl. ‘Rat Race’ feels like that call to arms, and this album feels like the band waking up and realising: hey, we can go into rock if we want to, and then proceeding to make a better rock record than most in the scene. Fuck it, get Tramhaus to Download.
The quieter tracks like ‘Sly Like Ever’ are few and far between but delicately paced, and quieter for Tramhaus is anything but, though it still feels quieter in the moment compared to what else there is. There are touches of Nick Cave here and, in true Nick Cave fashion, it isn’t a happy song, described by the band as “a song that reflects the feeling of a lost friendship, dealing with the reality of loss and pain. Understanding that at times, to cut ties is to set yourself free.”
Album closer ‘Swarm’ wraps up the thirty-seven minutes of pure chaos with an appropriately blistering touch, and a goth-rock influence comes into play here. The variety of the band is sure to send people into a frenzy from the off, laden with glorious riffs. It’s Tramhaus: they can start pits and are very much capable of doing so. It barks and it hollers and comes up for air before going into overdrive the same way metal albums do, loud, quiet, loud, quiet, all over again, building and building as it explodes at just the right moment. This feels built for the live scene, the whole record does, to the point where standing still while listening to it feels foolish. This is how the best kind of record should be: Tramhaus moving forward as a band that feels tailor-made to explode once more onto the touring circuit should they so wish. It’s a self-focused single about the individual and their image, and feels appropriately dizzying.
Tramhaus are one of the most exciting bands in the post-punk scene right now, and you couldn’t have picked a better band to support Gurriers if you tried. It was written in the stars. I’ve been itching to see them again since Rich Mix and the wait couldn’t have come at a better time. In lesser hands, it could be forced and stale. We’ve seen post-punk records, especially sophomore post-punk records, sound the same countless times over. But Tramhaus are lively at every single possible turn.