INGESTED, VULVODYNIA, PINT GLASS AND MALICE – SEASON BEATINGS – ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER: 13TH DECEMBER 2024

The sheer amount of “Academy” music venues will never suffice to confuse the living shit out of me. You have Academy 1 which stands as a solo building next to Academy 2, Academy 3 and Club Academy all situated in the University Of Manchester Students’ Union building on Oxford road. Tonight’s gig of ‘Seasons Beating” is hosted in Academy 3 located on the top floor of the students’ union building, it’s a small venue holding around 470 people so it is a very intimate setting for a gig. The line up for tonight adventure is Ingested, Vulvodynia, Pint Glass and Malice. Before going into the venue I managed to have a quick chat with Matt (Guitarist) of Malice by accident when trying to work out what time it was – Me being the honest person exclaiming “You know what I’ve not really heard of you guys before, no offense” to which he laughed and said “That’s okay, we’re fairly new and I hope you enjoy the vibe!”. If you’ve read any of my articles before you’d know I live for the friendly interactions – we love to see it so I’m giving this small moment in the evening a small shout out.

You’ll find in my review there was a lot of switch up and wild guest appearances throughout the evening with vocalists. With recent announcement of the departure of Jason Evans from Ingested there was a lot of speculation of who would be filling the boots of front man for Ingested for the remainder of current shows lined up.

Opening for the evening was Malice with a twist, by this this was Malice with a different vocalist for the show tonight instead of usual front man Josh Davies tonight featured Godeaters vocalist Jamie Harrison. Malice kicked off the night with a high bar and an exceptional performance.

With my unfamiliarity of the band and how they should have sounded with Josh I can’t comment on Jamie’s performance in comparison to how they usually sound but the band as a whole was outstanding. Everything worked. For a band that I started the night out unknowing of I will definitely be going through their stuff on spotify and adding some of this to my playlist. Really fucking well played guys, well played.

Following on from Malice were Guildford geeza’s Pint Glass. Pint glass are a band I’ve seen numerous times and never fail to both entertain and execute their sets flawlessly (If you would like to read about Pint Glass’s show with scottish “party slam” group Party Cannon you can find this >> HERE <<).

It will never fail to make me laugh about the amount of times “geeza” is chanted during their sets and is for sure a highlight for me when seeing these guys. The energy the crowds bring to their performances is unreal and the interactions between the band and crowd are always on point, it did make me howl at the fact a Christmas sack was brought on to stage and a can of stella was lobbed into the crowd. During their set featured the collab of two vocalists firstly Brad Harkness of Revelations made a guest appearance on stage followed by original vocalist of Pint Glass Barney.

Next to take to the stage were South African deathcore band Vulvodynia. Funnily enough if you don’t know what vulvodynia is I highly suggest you do not google it, the band takes their name from a medical condition that involves a chronic, unexplained pain in the area around the vagina / opening of the vulva I mean – we love a creative name right? Musically though I’ve always been a fan of Vulvodynia infact so far as to class their album Entabeni as on of my favourite albums released in 2024. I had a brief interaction with vocalist Lwandile Prusent and drummer Thomas Hughes in the foyer when I was leaving the show and they were absolutely lovely. I’d just like to say everyone I met throughout tonight were absolutely lovely people, we need to cherish this. Cherish these people. Cherish being nice to each other and look after each other (See I can be nice…).

Having had issues with their visas last time they were due to play in the UK it was actually fucking great to get to catch these guys. I adored their set. I adored them. Vulvodynia need to be protected at all costs and I look forward to catching them again hopefully in February 2025 with Cattle Decapaitation, Shadow of Intent and Revocation at the New Century Hall, Manchester (Tickets for this show are available >> HERE <<).

Finally headliners Ingested took the stage with a full five member line up and the question has been answered for those who were unsure who would be filling in for Jason for the Ingested shows… well… Remember the first band? Malice. Their original vocalist Josh Davies was the one who was doing this.

Ingested are a band who have often played with less than a ‘full band’ when performing so it was great to actually see a full member line up on stage (albeit a tiny stage where less members would be optimal for once!). Musically they were phenomenal and brought high energy to their performance throughout the evening, I enjoyed it. I liked to see it. Vocals from Josh Davies were impressive and it makes me want to see Malice even more with their full line up to see how they sound with their original vocalist performing with them too. But back to Ingested – Can not fault their set, if felt energetic, it felt cinematic – the crowds reactions showed that they are doing something right and their set went down really well with the audience.

I feel lately all I’ve been able to do is praise bands performances. I feel I’ve not given a single negative word in at least my last 4 reviews… where’s the trash and bad attitudes lads? Jokes aside – It’s absolutely wonderful to see so much talent and creativity being hosted at gigs and that people are keeping the music scene going even if sometimes there’s issues with people going to gigs and staying for full shows it’s nice to see the effort from artists is not dwindling and continues to be at the forefront of peoples music. I give praise to everyone who performed this evening both guest vocalists and core band members alike. It was a pleasure to attend and I hope in the future I’ll be able to pick up some of the bands different shows throughout 2025.

Overall, if you like metal or anything heavy this night would have been an absolute great ‘christmas treat’ for you. All bands were on point and I can not point out anything negative from the evening. I’m looking forward to what the future brings for ALL of the bands that were featured tonight, roll on 2025.

For everything MALICE visit >> HERE <<

For everything PINT GLASS visit >> HERE <<

For everything VULVODYNIA visit >> HERE <<

For everything INGESTED visit >> HERE <<

For more photography from the evening visit my INSTAGRAM >> HERE <<