Makes My Blood Dance – Bannermans, Edinburgh 20/10/26
Makes My Blood Dance
Bannermans, Edinburgh
20/10/26
Review by: Jon Deaux
Evil disco is making a comeback.
Bannermans is definitely one of those venues that you know belongs there. One of those places where it’s okay to own a dog with a missing ear. Because, you know, it has lived and caused enough trouble. In the Old Town, underground, there are walls that have seen enough battles for a lifetime, ceilings too low for anybody taller than six feet not to get a mild case of a concussion. The venue itself is dark and dank the way venues are supposed to be – not dark and dank in the Wetherspoons carpet style, but the proper kind of dark and dank. Motorhead and Black Sabbath setting the mood in the front room, which is the actual loyalty test; if you are offended, just fuck off.
To the back, you can find the gig room, the same stone walls where two hundred people can fit, and it is built for rock, metal, and acoustic gigs. But there’s no acoustic gig for us today, but somehow, we managed both at once.
Step into the stone dungeon made for men in leather jackets playing three chords and being loud; step Makes My Blood Dance. Four Brooklyn maniacs who look as if they had robbed a sex club and a Guitar Center, and are wearing stolen goods in public. EVO up front performing frontman witchcraft, cheekbones of weapon grade and body language banned in at least three countries, and you expect them to go narcissistic, but it never does; it just gets right, which is annoying as hell in the room where Motörhead is expected.
Jon Kristian is at the side playing lead guitar and doing electronics at the same time; obviously, whoever distributed the talent among these guys forgot to give away anything to any other member of the band. Space Baby, or “I Love” Lucy – both names used tonight, with no explanations given – not playing exactly, but rearranging your insides with the help of a bass guitar, and in the room with the stone walls your bass will bounce right into your ribs. G Rex, El Ray Ray, or whichever name he uses tonight, is hitting his drums as if he just finished serving his term in prison for doing just that, and he will do it again gladly.
The venue designed for sweaty punk rockers has absolutely no business turning into a neon cult ritual, but it manages it perfectly. Stone walls are sweating profusely. Somebody’s eyeliner has decided to have a holiday halfway through his face. Several people are hugging as if they got out of a plane crash. And the band was returning it to them – riff, drop, scream, repeat, somebody bleeding somewhere – for almost an hour without stopping in the venue where most gigs happen on three chords and a shrug.
I am not sure about the songs performed; I was too busy drinking in the atmosphere to be taking notes on a clipboard like some perv in the corner. If the titles of the songs were announced, I was too occupied to notice. What we got instead was a nervous breakdown of a stranger set to an excellent light show and in a very old rock tomb.
There was a softer part where you didn’t mind grabbing somebody’s hand for no reason, which led into industrial carnage and a middle part where some group therapy sessions are happening with a strobe light, before everything started again at the end and seemed to prove nothing. Six songs, apparently. I have no idea. All I am sure about is my insides were on the outside by this point. Although I do think there was a cover of Lately (originally recorded by Macy Gray).
What I can tell you is this, dear reader. For a brand new band, they are immense live; Evo works his sweaty cock off to get the audience engaged, and engaged they become. The musicianship is phenomenal. At this current moment in time, there is no other band out there that is producing anything close to this band. You can hear influences from Static X, The Newlydeads, and, dare I say, dance music mixed with disco!?
If you get a chance to see them in a venue near you in the very near future. Buy a ticket and go. I don’t think you’d be disappointed. (They’re currently on tour with Genitorturers. Tour dates below)
I walked out into the fresh Edinburgh air with my hearing and self-respect all slightly depleted. Bannermans has been a witness to many a depraved act over the course of many centuries. This one goes down as one of the good ones.
I’d see Makes My Blood Dance again without hesitation — I just wouldn’t take my nan, mostly because she’d enjoy it more than she’d ever admit to me. But mainly because she’s dead.
https://makesmyblooddance.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Makesmyblooddance
Venue:
https://www.bannermanslive.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/BannermansBar/
https://www.instagram.com/bannermans/
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Jon Deaux and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
