By Jase Walker
One thing that living near-ish to the ÜK still affords me is getting to see bands from back home make their inroads into the European continent in much more intimate venues, tonight this is Static Dress. It’s no secret that these have made quite the name for themselves in old Blighty but it’s finally time for them to strike out on their own in the bigger world and getting to see them in a cozy venue like EKKO in Utrecht was a chance I couldn’t pass off.
Along for the ride on the European dates are Soul Blind and Holder, neither of whom I’m familiar with but keen on checking out!
The moment Holder started the crowd immediately fell into a void in the middle and people went mad, I figured tonight was gonna be a chaotic show but so suddenly right from the start is a bit nuts even for my expectations.
My initial impression is this is sort of a hardcore meets blackgaze sort of vibe. They’ve got elements of Rolo Tomassi and Møl but also feel as hard as Scowl and Dying Wish. If this doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the night I don’t know what does. I’m also weirdly surprised at the mix as a lot of US bands go in crazy hard on the volume levels of the snare and bass drum and yet Holder aren’t doing that: it’s far more balanced so the riffs and vocals are super balanced against the blasting drums.
There are bits of technical punk here as well that remind me a lot of Fall Of Troy, odd rhythms and time signatures, genuinely really great stuff. The further we get through the set, the mathcore style comes through much stronger, Holder definitely seems to enjoy jumping through different styles but mathcore comes off as a much more core sound.
Soul Blind are up next, and their start seems quite different in terms of style as this errs a bit more towards grunge along the lines of Alice In Chains and Soundgarden? I really didn’t expect this sort of thing to be on a tour with a -core band.
The further we get into the set the more I’m enamoured with Soul Blind, there’s so much 90s alt-metal worship in here that the likes of Split Chain and Ocean Grove champion too. I feel like I’m watching a band that discovered Spineshank and Stone Temple Pilots and just fully ran with their sound.
The pit has somewhat changed pace in favour of everyone just going full headbang mode as opposed to the two-step sort of thing that was happening with Holder. This is exactly the sort of stuff you’d find on Scuzz or Kerrang back in the late 90s and early 2000s and I fucking love it.
The echoes of my late teens are being brought to life via Soul Blind right now and seeing a young band getting a reaction like this from the crowd gives me hope that we’ll see a full proper revival of the alt-metal era. I think I’ve spent most of their set staring at them in total awe of a band that channels most of the bands I used to listen to back in my late teens.
Echoes of a time I thought was dead and buried but clearly not, Soul Blind are reigniting the torch of the alt-metal times and I couldn’t be happier.
And finally, the big draw for tonight, Static Dress. Hitting Europe with their new album, ‘Injury Episode’, I don’t doubt that this crowd is gonna go mental.
Just as I fully expected, there’s no small pit here, it’s literally the entire crowd. It’s not long before one of the more bizarre moments I’ve seen at a show happens with someone passing out roses to the crowd and a whole sea of people waving them around; admittedly given the whole Leeds thing, shouldn’t they be white? Ah well.
What an incredible vibe there is here tonight though, one of the main reasons I love smaller club shows. I feel like these sorts of shows matter more to me than the huge ones you get otherwise. The amount of intimacy you get with a room that barely passes 300 people where every single person in the room is fully intent on making the most of the evening and a band that loves being so close to them is a phase that you don’t get to enjoy very long when a band is on a big upward trajectory in the way Static Dress is.
By the halfway point it’s time for the crowd surfers to go fully all in, the energy has reached a phenomenal level, and people are getting on top of everyone then getting to the stage and jumping straight back. I knew this was going to be chaos tonight, but this exceeds my expectations by a massive margin! I think I’ve lost count of how many times Oli has shouted out “this one’s for all the fucking moshers!”, I mean it’s a bit of a given at this point. We managed to get a “Yorkshire!” chant going at one point because ya gotta represent and all that I guess right? Oli seemed a bit weirded out by that because it’s not like we’re in the north of England anymore right?
Admittedly only by the end of the set did I realize that this is a full album set. I kinda figured the material would rely heavily on the new album but I didn’t actually expect it to be an entire album playthrough which makes this a pretty special show in its own right other than the insane energy from both the band and crowd.
Watching a lad try to get a high five off the band only to get shoved off the stage by Oli during ‘clean.’ was pretty fucking hilarious too.
With the last few songs being a quick run through their back catalogue of big hitters, you wouldn’t believe this was the case. Static Dress have run through their latest album in full and everyone here was going for it regardless. It might sound grandiose, but I truly think that Static Dress are the saviours of modern British post-hardcore. I don’t think they’ll potentially ever do a venue this size again until they hit further shores of maybe North America or Australia.
What a truly incredible show to witness, long may they keep it going.
- All content © Über Rock 2026. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.