[DID NOT ATTEND: April 4, 2026] Nothing / Full Body 2 / Cryogeyser / Violent Magic Orchestra
I don’t fall for a lot of hype about things. But when Union Transfer hypes an upcoming show, I often check out the band. They especially like to hype Philly bands (which makes sense) and I feel like I had been very lax on my Philly music knowledge. Nothing is a band that I probably should have known but didn’t. And it turns out I’ve had a few opportunities to see them. They opened for Boris on the one tour that I missed and they hosted or helmed Slide Away Philadelphia, which was an all day shoegaze event. I would have loved every band but a whole day would have been too much.
At the time I wrote
They’ve been around for almost fifteen years. Everything I’ve listened to from them has been quite good. They tend to veer into the more creepy and less heavy side of shoegaze.
Full Body 2 (odd name that) is also from Philly. They sound a lot more like My Bloody Valentine than other contemporary shoegaze bands–the vocals are really buried and there’s some interesting synth sounds.
IndexYear0001.com explains the name
Full Body 2 are a band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania made up of Cassidy Rose Hammond, Dylan Vaisey, & Jack Chaffer.
Full Body 2 is a sequel to the band Full Body, which included Hammond and Vaisey. Full Body 2 have a dense, shoegaze sound which they combine with aspects of electronic genres like breakcore and digi-core as well as rendered futuristic aesthetics.
Opener Cryogeyser says this about themselves on their bandcamp: “Three piece from Los Angeles. Cute.”
Flood Magazine writes that
Distortion and reverb are their friends, but none of their music feels consumed or overwhelmed by such effects. A mix of dreampop, shoegaze, and grunge, the LA-based trio balance their stone-heavy rhythmic section of bassist Hunter Martinez and drummer McCoy Kirgo with the swirling melodies and heaven-reaching vocals of singer-guitarist Shawn Marom.
Their music is quite stark and spare, though for all the reverb. There’s also a sense of 50s girl group about them. I’d be curious to see how that translates live.
I hadn’t heard of Violent Magic Orchestra who are from Japan.
The Wire says this “Osaka based six piece fuses black metal aesthetics with the endorphin rush of peak time hard trance and gabber”
And the blurb on their bandcamp pages says
After touring the globe showcasing their A/V moshpit-inducing live show, they are revealing their new musical creations to an unsuspecting public. Never Sleep are proud to present a landmark moment in the Japanese hardcore new rave scene.
The blinding lights of DEATH RAVE point to an untraveled journey, a sci-fi fusion of black metal, gabber, cyberpunk, performance art and techno.
I have no idea how they wound up on this shoegaze bill and their live show sounds pretty amazing. They are more glitchy/noisy than the other bands, but I would love to see what their love show is like.
We were in Minnesota for this show. I hadn’t been all that excited about this show because I’d forgotten what Nothing sounded like, but as soon as I listened to them again I remembered how much I liked them and how much this whole evening would have been awesome.
I Just Read About That... 