Spite, Varials, Diesect, Signals @ Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 1/5/2026
In what seems like the last days of summer, a cauldron of hot and feisty metal is being stewed within the walls of Lions Art tonight. Spite, on their first headlining tour of Australia, are ripped, staunch and ready to turn the heat up to boiling point.
An evening including the added ingredients of the spicy Varials, the chunky Diesect and the zingy Signals, who open the proceedings with a ferocity seldom seen from an opener.
The hometown team Signals tear holes in the sound system with big metal riffs, hardcore breakdowns and enough flames to have the pit whirling into motion. Nothing from the band is faint hearted. The drums sound like bombs going off, the guitars like a V8 engine and I’m wondering how anyone is going to top the intensity.
Not to be outdone, Brisbane’s Diesect land with a thud of King Kong proportions. With a rumble like a bowel movement, they are brutally heavy in an intimidating way. Tracks like newbie Four Walls create a huge space for the moshers to stretch out and they oblige. Blast beats, breakdowns, and roaring vocals the soundtrack to movers on the floor.
Where The Light Leaves opens Varials set and the sound is all encompassing, addictive and quite simply, loud. Vocalist Skyler Conder performs sermon like vocals as he leads an army of moshers into battle.
The intensity of the band’s performance through songs Blissful End, Your Soul Feeds and Empire Of Dirt, the perfect antidote to everyone’s shit week at work. A cathartic release of tension that visibly makes the room breathe.
Finishing with I’ll Find The Dark the music’s vibrations, and the strewn bodies in front, resemble devastation from an earthquake. They have a high reputation and tonight they showed why.
The ingredients of the opening bands have all been mixed up and cooked on a low heat and it’s time for that to be turned up and then dished out. Spite are next.
Boy, do they pack a punch. The pit moves, the guitars sound like buzzsaws cutting through bone and in vocalist Darius Tehrani they have a manic and charismatic frontman.
Opening with New World Killer and Gavel, the sensory overload of sound, feels and sweat takes control to the point I swore I saw a guy in a wheelchair doing a circle pit during Snap.
Darius wants us to burn the place to the ground however it is Spite who are the incendiary device as Shallow and Shedding Skin antagonise the crowd’s bodies to gyrate further.
Packing riffs that swagger, punch and seduce at the same time, Spite combine the grooves of Pantera with the anger of street punk to create a two fingered hardcore salute that is undeniably Spite.
Kill Or Be Killed puts an exclamation point at the end of a fifty-minute set that flew by. The chatter amongst the crowd leaving is that this was the best show many had seen in some time. And that, is the best review anyone could give.
Live Review By Iain McCallum