There is a great buzz about Edinburgh today with the last day of the Fringe Festival taking place but for us it is the third edition of the Edinburgh Psych Festival that we are here for and with a stellar line-up including Nadine Shah, DEADLETTER and Heartworms we are in for a great day of music. First up we went to watch the midday ‘Old Firm’ match in the pub that turned out to be one of the most boring games in history … let’s hope the music is a bit more exciting than that!
After a quick dash down to Summerhall to collect our wristbands, it was followed by Honeyglaze at Queen’s Hall, the London-based trio are well known for playing live shows where they connect to the audience and that is managed perfectly by vocalist/guitarist Anouska Sokolow. The set is mainly made up of tracks from their second album Real Deal with Pretty Girls, Don’t and Cold Caller being the pick of the bunch, they also played newly released track Turn Out Right, this one didn’t make the cut for the last album. We had a chat with the band after the performance so check back to read that soon. 9/10
We hung around Queen’s Hall for the Heartworms’ set at 4.30pm and even caught the soundcheck, vocalist & guitarist Jojo Orme has an exceptional stage presence with some groovy dance moves to go alongside it. After the release of debut album Glutton For Punishment earlier this year we were treated to more than a few from that release but not forgetting the EP A Comforting Notion from which we get to hear Consistent Dedication and Retributions Of An Awful Life. We first came across the music of Jojo Orme at the TRNSMT Festival in 2024 and have been fans ever since. It really is difficult to pigeon-hole the music of Heartworms, there are elements of post-punk, gothic rock and dance punk. Warplane and Jacked were two of the standouts from the forty-five minute set that rocked the Queen’s Hall to the core. On the way out we couldn’t help but overhear people praising the band for a great performance, have a listen to this band you won’t regret it. 9/10
We caught the last twenty minutes of Anna Erhard in the Dissection Hall over at Summerhall where a large crowd had assembled to watch the Berlin-based indie pop singer, what we saw sounded good. It was now time to check out the bustling food court in the centre of Summerhall, the atmosphere was very laid back as the bands mixed with the fans creating the feel-good factor but more importantly for us the food was decent as was the cider, and decently priced too unlike the usual rip-off festivals.
Staying at Summerhall, Edinburgh band Swiss Portrait played the Main Hall with a very entertaining forty-five minute set, led by guitarist and vocalist Michael Kay Terence, they have developed a very unique style of music since qualified artist Terence began making DIY music during the pandemic, he also produced all his own music. They have a decent back catalogue of songs to choose from having released three albums to date including Someday in September 2024, one of the band members is missing tonight after he recently became a father but it doesn’t impact the performance a great deal. The three band members perform what the band themselves describe as “distinctive dreamy, jangle-op sound”. They released new song Place only the week before the festival and it sounded great live, it is good to see a local band being quite high up on the Edinburgh Psych Festival line-up, they totally deserve it. It is the more prominent songs that we enjoy most, some of the guitar riffs during Patagonia, Cassette and last song of the set Find My Way are a standout. We have seen Swiss Portrait live a few times now and each time they only seem to get better. 9/10
We had been looking forward to seeing Du Blonde at 8pm but after drummer Joe was taken ill the band had to cancel their performance, instead we headed straight back to Queen’s Hall for an hour-long set from DEADLETTER and we are so glad that we did! Vocalist Zac Lawrence was a standout and soon has those standing down the front moving big time as he moves in and out of the crowd daring them to cause mayhem, they had a small group of fans at the front who did just that. The London-based band remind us so much of the style of Fontaines D.C. and even Talking Heads at times, singer Lawrence soon moves to a ‘taps aff’ mentality and no wonder, his stage energy is so explosive. Musically the focus is on last year’s album Hysterical Strength from which we get a decent return of eight tracks including Credit To Treason and Mere Mortal, the standouts for us are Binge that is by far their biggest track to date and Madge’s Declaration. We need to see DEADLETTER playing a headline set now. 9/10
We decided to hang around Queen’s Hall for the final act of the night Nadine Shah who appeared on stage just shy of 10pm to play an hour of jazz-infused indie-rock. Nadine released fifth album Filthy Underneath in 2024 after a turbulent period of her life and the songs on the album reflect this traumatic time for the musician, sometimes the music is heart-wrenching at other times very emotional and reflective. Sunderland born Shah was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2017 with the release of Holiday Destination proving that she is a very respected musician. The set has a good mixture of tracks from previous releases but focuses mainly on Filthy Underneath from which we get a minimum of seven songs including the excellent Greatest Dancer and Topless Mother, both of these tracks are played with great passion by the full band on the stage. Nadine also has a few moments at the keyboard proving her versatility as a musician, on the screen behind the stage there is a striking image of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu sipping cocktails being served by Keir Starmer while bombs drop in the background reminding us of the state of the world we currently live in. We don’t normally associate politics with music but we had to make an exception this time. This was our first time seeing Nadine Shah live and we left the Queen’s Hall as fans. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
