LIVE REVIEW: Holywatr, Within Reach, Camden Underworld, London, 10/06/2026
As part of a string of festival appearances on our side of the pond — most notably playing Slam Dunk’s Europe dates and Donington’s Download — the Los Angeles foursome managed to squeeze in some headline shows of their own. With their first ever London show comfortably sold-out weeks in advance, we had to get down there and see what the fuss was.
But first, melodic metalcore quintet Within Reach took the stage. Having only a half hour to make an impact, the band’s head-banging seemed to start even before they’d actually started playing opener Liar & The Host, the five contorting low enough to look like some sort of reverse limbo competition.
The UK outfit happily spent their set battering the crowd with crushing riffs and soaring melodies; the particularly slick guitar-led introduction to Plead — dedicated to Holywatr, vocalist Makenzie Clague smirkingly challenging the crowd to show them “how the fuck the UK does it” — and the more emotional Hesitate, phone flashlights going strong, notwithstanding. Instead, the set felt closer to the savage, sanguine-soaked Drip Fed or the acerbic Armageddon, a communal catharsis of aggression. Though, the sadistic opening of More To Me, the room crouching, tensed, waiting for an explosion that took its sweet, leg-numbing time to come, left more than a few in the crowd feeling a little rueful even as they jumped up.
A fantastic way to start the night — and in the context of a support band playing a half hour set to a crowd that’s never heard of them and realistically wants it to just be the main band already? A phenomenally easy 10/10
Then. A single, blinding spotlight cutting through the gloom. Ominous organ music drifting across the venue, the room transforming into something akin to a cult gathering. A solitary Patrick Middelthon, stepping on stage to deliver the delicate, crooned opening of Starving, a haunting soliloquy at the nadir of a tragedy. Holywatr had arrived. The track felt almost despondent live, the evocative croon of Patrick — henceforth known here by the mononym Holy — carrying a sense of spent exhaustion, even as he leant down to grasp the hands of fans packed against the barrier. It was only after the chorus kicked in that the rest of the band seemed to emerge, the song swelling into the intoxicating blend of Deftones-esque grunge, shoegaze textures and crushing heaviness that has quickly become the band’s calling card. “Welcome to Wednesday night service with Holywatr” grinned Holy, pouring water on the crowd.
The band are still early enough into their career that gigs like these feel like a run-through of their entire discography. From the ‘one that started it all’, Without u — what seemed like every phone in the crowd rocketing into the air to catch every second of the fan favourite — or Psalms’ Mistake, a chaotic blend of crowd surfers, stage divers and two steppers turning the room into a maelstrom of chaos as even Within Reach ran in from off stage to get involved, all the way to a slew of Deo Gratias favourites, over three years of missed time got crammed, kicking and screaming, into the band’s ninety minutes. Every track felt like a fan favourite, like an opportunity to indulge. A girls’ only pit for early favourite for the plot, its acoustic intro and vitriolic, impassioned cries turning into anguished screams, felt like a cathartic release, Holy and the crowd both soaking contentedly in the rage before it faded to nothing — at least for the thirty or so seconds it took for Give Me A Show to kick in, pre-empted by what felt like a hurricane-like warning from the band to “seek safety” — while tracks like the instantly anthemic, insidiously silky nail polish, the languorous, shoegaze-esque fade or the seductively sinister falsetto of Burn The Witch, evocative and emotional cleans punctuated by snapshots of anguish, had the crowd alight with screams and phone screens in equal number.
That last fact seemed to needle the band a little, as if a little disappointed by the fans they’d gathered and their reluctance to live in the moment rather than watch everything through phone screens. “This shit’s why we’re bringing back public shaming”, half-joked Patrick as he (rightfully) called out someone in the crowd for constantly gesturing at and bothering him early into the set. Constant calls for walls of death or mosh pits, too, felt like a band slightly rueful for not being having as ‘heavy’ a crowd as some of their music demands. Still, it’s hard to be genuinely annoyed when a sold out gig screams back every word in the breakdown of beartrap, Chandler Martin’s guitar solo washing through the room, or forms a cavernous circle pit during My Mom’s In There!; nor can you really begrudge fans getting clips after waiting years to headbang along to closer loose ends, especially as they crowd surf you around the venue after stage diving.
Especially for a band still early in their ascent — and make no mistake, from the energy in that room there’s no question about it — Holywatr were phenomenal. Arriving just days before an Avalanche Stage appearance at Download, their sold out London debut at Camden’s Underworld felt almost painfully intimate, judging by the dozens of fans who’d queued up for hours to get close, who’d waited year upon infuriating year for the band’s inevitable UK debut. But it wasn’t lost on anyone lucky enough to be present that the band won’t stay contained by such small rooms for much longer.
10/10
Written By: James O’Sullivan
