Uncover Presents: Glasstalk
With Kick The Clown, Project Revise, Spankbox
27th June 2025 @ Drummonds, Worcester
Just under a quarter of a century ago, I was an 18-year-old at the Reading Festival. Looking at the line-up now is enough to make a nostalgic and bitter 43-year-old cry: Foo Fighters, Deftones, Slipknot, Rage, Blink 182, Daphne and Celeste. We didn’t know how good we had it. However, rather than reminisce about that sepia-tinged, phone-free weekend of glorious carnage, I decided to go to Drummonds and listen to four incredibly talented bands from the West Midlands: the cradle of rock itself.
If you’re going to call yourselves ‘Spankbox’, it’s mandatory to have the goofy energy of Bloodhound Gang as well as great songs. Thankfully, Spankbox meet the criteria. Their set begins with Killing Joke-like chiming guitar – the equivalent of pealing church bells, summoning sinners from afar to dowse themselves in rock ‘n’ roll redemption. Tommy Steel on vocals and bass has a hard b**tard World War Two name and the literal stature of Krist Novoselic – so big, the venue can barely contain him. Towards the end of one song, Steel whacks one of Luke Morgan’s cymbals just because he can. Sam Oliver on guitar is too busy to be bemused: there’s Led Zeppelin riffery, Black Flag thrash, and at one point he observes his own fingers dancing on the fretboard like someone casually extinguishing an army of flies on the beer garden table. Tommy tells the crowd: “It’s Friday. The beers are in. I’ve got nothing else to say.” A speech so beautiful and tender that it makes a barman audibly sob.
Project Revise’s Chris Tamburo does some ‘Summer of ‘69’ strumming to check his guitar is OK after a horrible crackle from a speaker that sounds like Satan ripping the fabric of time. After that demonic false start, the band launch into a Rocket from the Crypt-like intro. We’re told to put our hands in the air, and the crowd dutifully obliges – impressively early collective obedience, though the beer may have had some influence. The next two songs are propelled by military drumming on fast forward. While performing this impossibly exhausting feat, drummer David Yarnell looks like a toddler who’s just been given a soft play centre for Christmas. On a later song, which could easily have been a hit in 2000, he simultaneously belts out lyrics like he’s gasping for air in a waterfall. The whole band (shout out to Rich Marshall on bass too) have serious, fun Jimmy Eat World energy.
Worcester punks Kick The Clown create a frisson before a note has even been played. It’s those boiler suits worn by Dan McLaren on bass and Matt Tyler on guitar: equal parts Slipknot and Marxist Formula 1 drivers. Bizarre juxtapositions of the world, unite! Indeed, George Ormerod roams the stage wearing sunglasses and with the intent of a sociopathic property developer sizing up a foodbank. Highlights include: a warped tannoy beaming in a dreadful news announcement; George screaming, “This is war!” and pogoing as if he’s on a mission to dislodge remnants of asbestos with his skull; James Ormerod on drums becoming ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’ Brad Wilk; and latest single ‘Plastic People’ (you can read the SLAP review.) Kick The Clown are, unlike Toploader, not a band to perform at Conservative Party Conference. They are, however, available for weddings and the start of revolutions.
Glasstalk are an emo band and they are Mitch Tyler (vocals/guitar), Ollie Badger (drums), Nick Lloyd (bass), and Ad Baker (guitar). If there was any doubt about the genre to which they belong, that doubt is erased within the first three seconds of their set: delayed, echoing guitar transports us to a stadium arena where everyone is sad but also very happy. Halfway through the second song, Mitch and Ollie have a Mortal Kombat-style face-off, but we’re all friends here. Ollie’s speed on drums prompts vigorous clapping by Dave from Project Revise, and on final song ‘Leave It Alone’ he whacks his kit as if he’s rousing a village to war. If you like the moody, shimmering, cascading sound of Deftones, you have no need to schlep to California – Glasstalk are on your doorstep, or at least very near to it.
Spankbox, Project Revise, Kick The Clown, Glasstalk – you’ve been amazing. Let’s all meet up in the year 2026 and do it all over again.
By: Neil Laurenson
Photos: Seán Sheridan