LIVE REVIEW: The Wytches, Melanie Baker @ The Cluny, Newcastle (28.10.25)

Image by Dominic Stephenson

Joining The Wytches for a string of Northern tour dates was Cumbrian singer-songwriter Melanie Baker and band. A regular performer around these parts, this was the first time I’d caught her troupe and they unveiled a bouquet of candy-coated brand spankers, taken from the upcoming debut album. Tunes like Haha and Real Life are angsty yet heartfelt, punctuated with angular guitars, a robust rhythm section and layered with caressing harmonies. A radiant showing culminated with Slugs, awoken by gentle synths and conducted by her rousing vocals which ascended into crescendoing catharsis. Who would’ve thought the slum landlords of Heaton are getting life-affirming ballads written about them?

When I first saw The Wytches on the NME Awards Tour over ten years ago, it felt like they were the natural heirs to the gothic garage of The Horrors. While the latter has delved into glacial experimentation in the years since, the Brighton quartet have straddled a more consistent sonic route and despite limited commercial success, they’ve maintained a cult following and were fresh off the back of releasing their fifth album, Talking Machine. Unsurprisingly then, they walloped straight into the titular tune from the new crop but what was surprising was the sheer primordial viscerality and vigour that was lathered over the setlist, which was sprinkled with their ghoulish relics from yesteryear. This heaving wall of fuzz oozed with gothabilly menace and they interjected spruced up numbers like Black Ice and Coffin Nails with the surf-brushed Wire Frame Mattress, and the doomy dirge of all-timer Gravedweller. Unhinged guitar tones and clattering drums foment their grainy textures and Kristian Bell’s caustic snarl weaves these unearthly ditties together – a man of few words, he paused briefly to mutter that, “The last time we were here, John Cooper Clarke was smoking a doobie in the dressing room”.

In that time they’ve made their own rare foray into experimentation, the acoustic-led Is The World Too Old dripping with Latin qualities, before they returned to ominous chugging on curious antiquity The Holy Tightrope and they brought this prowling slab of noise to a close with the more tender balms of White Cliffs from 2020’s Three Mile Ditch. While they’ve never quite reached the heights that were once promised, The Wytches have furrowed a rickety pick ‘n’ mix of garage, goth and grunge, chipping away and burrowing deeper into their decadent microgenre.