Grunge and glamour: Black Honey’s triumphant London return

When Black Honey released their fourth album, Soak, in August 2025 the standout description of it was “cinematic”. The Brighton four-piece was praised for stitching together a confident, varied mix of gritty, melodic alt-rock delivered with swagger and attitude. With 11 years as a band under their belt, the album demonstrated an increasing maturity in both their songwriting and visual identity. It had all the flavour of their grainy, rough-around-the-edges, earlier albums, delivered with the vicious theatricality of Tarantino and Kubrick.

As singer and guitarist Izzy B. Phillips proclaims towards the end of the set, this is a band who have been around the world and played some huge venues and yet, on this evening, playing Village Underground in London’s Shoreditch seems like a homecoming. The exposed brickwork, high warehouse-like ceiling and archway entrance has the air of a perfectly thrown-together, stylishly seedy design space for Black Honey to showcase their grungy, emotionally expressive indie rock. It’s a venue that allows artists to close the gap to their fans, and Phillips and Co. are in their element.

Connecting with the audience is very much what support band Girl Group is all about. From Liverpool via Norway and Yorkshire, their infectious electro indie-pop tunes combine with sharply observed lyrics telling stories of modern female life and their experiences of the male dominated UK music industry. Drawing on influences from Charli XCX, and Lily Allen, to Wet Leg, and Chappell Roan, no punches are pulled as they rip into the absurdities of modern life, messy nights out and judgemental mainstream society. Pop music is often at its best when it deals with serious themes in a brightly humorous, sharp-tongued way and Girl Group are well on their way to mastering this art. Like the nights out they describe, it’s a slightly chaotic, take-us-as-we-are set which pulls the audience in and demands that they listen to both music and message.

Unsurprisingly, Black Honey go heavy on their most recent work. Opening with the intense and obsessive ode to love of “To The Grave,” they declare their intent from the start. Phillips is the perfect lead for the band’s mix of energetic, riff-driven grunge-pop and melodic sing along anthems. On tracks like “Spinning Wheel,” from 2018’s self-titled debut album, she’s glamorous, outwardly confident and slightly unsettling – the undeclared seventh Deadly Viper.

There’s so much going on in Black Honey’s back catalogue. “Beaches” is a brazen and riotous celebration of summertime hedonism wrapped in a delicious singalong surfer-rock tune. “Soak,” “Dead” and “Vampire in the Kitchen” draw from shoegaze tinged with a bluesy sense of the something’s-not-quite-right-here. “Hello Today” harks back to the lo-fi jangly guitars of ‘90’s bands like Elastica, Garbage and Hole. Last year’s “Psycho,” released as the first single from Soak, overlays dark, dissociative lyrics with a slow, waltz-like dream-pop melody sung at top volume by the crowd (with added inflatable flamingos).

Throughout the set, there’s a great deal of good-natured indie-moshing action going on. It’s not a “tear everything apart” pit, but it’s clear evidence that the audience is fully plugged into the band’s stylish alt-rock anthems. The band’s musicianship is clear but it’s Izzy’s performance that stands out. She’s less assured in the quiet moments, acknowledging in one interlude that she’s not so good at the speaking bits, but the crowd loves her and is willingly led through favourites “Carroll Avenue,” “Shallow” and the closer, “Corrine.”

It’s a hugely satisfying end to what has been a nicely representative gallop through all of Black Honey’s varied and accomplished albums. While they haven’t (yet) hit the heady heights of the likes of Wolf Alice, they fully deserve their place as one of the leading live acts of the UK indie-rock scene.