deathcrash at YES

In the near-mythologised Windmill scene – that loose constellation of South London bands that briefly made guitar music feel unpredictable again – deathcrash always felt like the shy, mysterious kids in the corner. While Black Midi went all in on batshit mathrock and Black Country, New Road embraced genre-hopping theatrics, deathcrash – contrary to their name – moved more quietly, crafting slow-burning songs that unfold with patience and restraint before bursting into cathartic release.

Made up of Tiernan Banks, Matthew Weinberger, Patrick Fitzgerald and Noah Bennett, deathcrash have spent the past few years steadily shaping their sound across a handful of EPs and three albums. Their breakout EP People Thought My Windows Were Stars arrived during lockdown, its slow-burning tensions in step with the emotional tempo of the time. Their 2022 debut Return expanded that sound across an hour of sprawling, cinematic slowcore, followed by 2023’s leaner, more focused Less.

Now comes Somersaults, a third album that finds deathcrash turning that slow-burning intensity inward. Across its long, shifting tracks, the record circles the uneasy territory between youthful dreams and adult reality. The songs navigate questions of ambition, friendship and the practicalities of life beyond the band as some of the wide-eyed freedoms of youth begin to falter. Musically it’s a record built on contrasts: expansive yet intimate, quiet yet explosive, where eerie silences and fragile passages give way to sudden bursts of noise.

Tracks like the slow-building epic ‘The Thing You Did’ show deathcrash still operating in the territory they’ve long excelled at – the patient, tension-heavy slowcore that powered earlier highlights like ‘American Metal’ and ‘Doomcrash’. Elsewhere, though, Somersaults nudges the band in new directions. Songs like ‘Triumph’ and ‘Stay Forever’ push Tiernan Banks’ voice right to the forefront, while ‘NYC’ finds the band in a moment of collective self-reflection, expressing the strange reality of life spent touring. The result is a record that keeps deathcrash’s signature tension-and-release dynamics intact while sounding more direct and emotionally exposed than before.

Those dynamics have always been central to deathcrash’s appeal, and they land hard in a live setting. When the band arrive at YES this April, expect a set that feels like a macro version of their songs – slow-burning, patient and immersive before a hard-earned cathartic eruption.