[ATTENDED: September 20, 2026] Frayle
I didn’t know Frayle, but I knew they had a following (and haters, of course). They are a female fronted doom and witchrock band from Cleveland. What does that mean? Well, their influences are Sleep, Portishead, Björk, Kyuss, & Black Sabbath. Which sounds impossible, but is true. The heavy doomy Sleep and Sabbath with great witchy vocals of Portishead and Björk. Evidently there are two permanent members of the band Gwyn Strang (vocals) and Sean Bilovecky (guitars and I assume more).
They had the stage adorned with candelabra and their logo on vertical banners (visually very satisfying).
I had just seen Angine De Poitrine, a masked band, and I was pretty excited to see Eihwar and Frayle for even more masked fun.
The band came out and the only person I could see was their bassist who had corpsepaint makeup on and some chains across her face. She played an intense low end which sounded great throughout the set. Their drummer was behind her and it wasn’t until half way through the set that I realized he was wearing a black mask with a chain across the front. Their guitarist had on a large cape with a hood and it was only when he looked up tat you could see he was wearing a similar mask to the drummer. And then walked out. She too had her face painted white and had a series of chains across her face as well as a black tiara atop her head. She had blue eyes shadow on and wasn’t afraid to make eye contact with anyone.
Bright Eyes started the set with slow, heavy bass and guitar with haunting soft high pitched vocals floating over the top. It was great. The music was wonderfully heavy and slow but without the typical growled vocals. And the rest of their set was similarly heavy and grooving. At some point during the set I saw that the guitarist (who was huge) had a pink camera phone and was aiming it at us in the audience. Then I saw him hand it back to someone, so that was sweet.
I really enjoyed Heretic–a great riff and intense lyrics. The chorus was interesting because underneath her voice was a deep male voice singing along with her (demonic possession?). No one in the band seemed to sing along, so I assume it was pre-programmed or she had a very cool filter on her voice.
I really enjoyed the way All the Things I Was paused before the heavy chorus kicked in. The vibe of Walking Wounded was great (that’s what their T shirts say). Then asked if we had Summertime Sadness. I had no idea it was a Lana Del Rey song. I just listened to the original and the cover is very similar (especially in singing style) but with bug heavy chords that make me like the cover a lot better.
The riffage of Darker Than Black is great. It’s from an earlier album that seems to lean into Black Sabbath even more. It’s fantastic.
It was a terrific set and I would absolutely see them again.
Bright Eyes §
Treacle and Revenge §
Heretic Ȳ
All The Things I Was §
Walking Wounded Ȳ
Summertime Sadness (Lana Del Rey cover)
Darker Than Black ♦
Ȳ Heretics & Lullabies (2025)
§ Skin & Sorrow (2022)
♦ 1692 (2020)
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