Review: ALPHA WOLF - Live in Sunshine Coast

10 May

Irresistibly Violent

Thursday 8th May 2025

Written by Tom Wilson
Photographed by: Rashid AlKamraikhi

This is my fifth time seeing ALPHA WOLF in the last year, and if they announce a Brisbane show for next week, I’ll happily make it six.

This is, however, a first; my first time moshing on a tennis court, and locals ZUKO have first serve. He might be sick, frontman Jesse Hudson tells us, but he’s not going to let some pesky germs stop him from playing to the biggest crowd of ZUKO’s career. The pit spreads out wide, and hardcore fans two-step and whirlwind around as the band craft their special brand of bedlam, our necks at the mercy of Jordan’s snare. Between songs, Jesse addresses the crowd. “This song goes out to my dad,” he says. Naw, that’s sweet. “Fuck that c*nt!” Ouch!

Up next are INERTIA, who I last saw opening for OCEAN GROVE, and they haven’t lost their touch – their singer opening up with a massive voice and equally impressive beard as their guitarist sends the pit into hysterics with down-tuned riffage, getting an impossibly djent-y tone out of a six-string. It’s about this time that I see one of the bouncers down the front with his hands raised in the air, but he’s not telling the crowd off, he’s trying to amp them up. The Station is split down the middle for a wall of death, the music booms … and the crowd seems to forget to move. “I give it a C-,” Julian says with a smile. Whoopsie!

After the changeover, the lights go down, and the “final twist” music from the Saw movies, Hello Zep, swells from the speakers. A boxing announcer gives us the tale of the tape and, all the way from Sheffield, England, British bruisers MALEVOLENCE enter the ring, the imposing shape of frontman Alex Taylor stomping out from the wings and instantly taking charge of the room. Their guitarist’s backing vocals sound like Brissie rockers PISTONFIST, and Taylor dedicates Still Waters Run Deep to the day-one fans who’ve been with them since 2010. It’s a fantastic set.

This is my first experience with the Sunny Coast crowd, and boy, do they like a wide pit! There is enough room to land a helicopter, and each band’s frontman has to try and coax those at the back forward. Once it’s ALPHA WOLF’s turn, frontman Lochie Keogh is done being polite. “WALK TOWARDS ME,” he commands. Ever since I first heard the warbling riff for A Quiet Place to Die, I have been transfixed by this band, who have used metalcore as a jumping off point to go somewhere darker, more venomous and irresistibly violent. This is the biggest crowd they have ever pulled in the Sunny Coast, and they don’t let us forget it, thanking us for coming out multiple times throughout the set.

Instead of piping in the ICE-T sample for Sucks 2 Suck, they bring a friend out and get the crowd squatting down SLIPKNOT-style, before the beat drops and the entire Station Nightclub rockets up towards the arched ceiling. There is no encore tonight, but we don’t need one. Not ones to take their success (or their audience) for granted, ALPHA WOLF are putting in the hard yards on this tour, bringing back the noise to regional centres and giving country metalheads a reason to bang their heads. Where the band goes next after Half Living Things is anyone’s guess, but whatever they do, SENSE will be in the pit … because that’s where the dogs are at.