Wall of Mouths

I’ve transcribed Kerrang’s 5-star review:

“Although Kurt Cobain’s suicide cast a long shadow, 1994 was a remarkable year for rock music, with the release of a slew of classic albums whose influence continues to shape our world: Green Day’s Dookie, Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes and Korn’s eponymous debut among them. And yet Kerrang’s album of the year was none of the above, but rather an album made by three geeky misfits from Northern Ireland. Sixteen years on, Troublegum remains Therapy?’s most commercially successful album, and while heardcore fans might argue that it’s not the definitive therapy? release – its anthemic songs of adolescent alienation rather at odds with the the challenging, defiantly skewed sounds closest to frontman Andy Cairns’ black heart – for better or worse, it’s the set for which they are best known and best loved. It’s hard to imagine a trawl through the brilliantly deranged Suicide Pact – You First album, for instance, packing out this 2,350 capacity room to the same extent.

Therapy? have never been big on nostalgia, but the fact that a sizable chunk of this crowd clearly haven’t turned out to see the band in over a decade lends a welcome edge of hysteria and frenzy to proceedings tonight. While Dinosaur Pile-Up’s decidedly ‘90’s-influenced collision-pop is tolerated rather than applauded, from the moment Therapy? arrive and Andy spits out Knives’ brilliant opening lyric (‘My girlfriend says that I need help / My boyfriend says I’d be better off dead’), the Forum simply explodes. The likes of Screamager, Turn, Trigger Inside and Nowhere – all Top 30 singles – have rarely been absent from Therapy? set-lists over the years, but there’s an intensity to their delivery here that’s genuinely thrilling. It’d be a shame if returning fans treat this as a one-off experience – there’s the same punk rock spirit in newer Therapy? tracks like Exiles, aired in an ‘alternate greatest hits’ set following the Troublegum set – but in this moment, celebrations of past glories don’t come much more raucous or more relevant.”

Hahaha, good find mate. I’m probably showing my mate where the bar is.