The night before this headline show, I had seen Power Trip fire shots across the bows of the Pantera battleship with a fine support slot that was as warming to watch as that of the headliners. Twenty-four hours later, the band linked up with two up-and-coming UK names in a show that had more aggression than even this venue had seen for many a long year.
Power Trip – Grove Street – Overpower
Marble Factory, Bristol – 24 February 2025
Words And Photography: Paul Hutchings
It’s been a long return for the Texans, whose world was darkened in 2020 with the tragic loss of vocalist Riley Gale at the tender age of 34.
It has taken the band from Dallas several years to come to terms with their loss, regroup, and make the decision to carry on. Seth Gilmore has stepped into the frontman role and now looks incredibly comfortable, carrying the flag of his predecessor with pride and honour.
Tonight, if it is part of the continued catharsis for the band, then it is surely an outlet that is very much set on healing the wounds, for Power Trip are simply savage. They thrust their Hardcore Thrash onto the willing mob in the pit with no mercy.
For 65 minutes, the Marble Factory throbs with the chainsaw guitar work and the relentlessly swirling pit that has already done more warming up than is needed, thanks to the two openers. 
It is a take-no-prisoners approach that engages everyone in the venue. Few people are standing still, and fewer still are motionless. Regardless of your take, Power Trip get you moving.
Power Trip ensure that those in front of them are ready with a double slamming to the head, as Soul Sacrifice and Executioner’s Tax (Swing Of The Axe) provoke a frenzied response. I am sure sharks feed in a less brutal way than the crowd here.
It takes mere seconds for the first of hundreds of crowd surfers to fly over the barrier, the anxious security easing into action and handling it all with professional ease.
Having seen Power Trip the night before, I was already assured that this is a band who are intent on honouring the memory of their late frontman but are also keen to make up for lost time. Tonight, it feels like they simply cannot wait to prove to their own audience that they are back.
The riffs are insane, unrelenting in their aural assault on the masses of swirling limbs in front of them. Central to all is Gilmore, who looks at home and can provide the rapid-fire delivery that Gale made his own. Alongside Gilmore, bassist Chris Whetzel is a mass of hair and fist pumps as he roams the stage with a sinister edge of malevolence. 
There are few smiles, such is the focus on their art, but beneath it all, you can sense the joy of this band being back on stage and destroying everything around them.
It is carnage as Nightmare Logic rips through the venue, whilst the song Drown is played in Gale’s memory with such brutality one wonders if the very fabric of the building will survive. 
The dual guitar work of Blake Ibanez and rhythm guitarist Nick Stewart cuts through the cool evening air with clinical accuracy, those chugging riffs firing even greater efforts as the band roar into Waiting Around To Die, Manifest Decimation, and a pulverising encore of Crossbreaker.
It is a real statement of intent. Power Trip are back, and for those gathered tonight, this is fantastic in every way.
Grove Street
They have been around for well over a decade, but my knowledge of Grove Street was limited to their name appearing on a few festival bills in recent years. Not anymore, for the Southampton Quintet showed tonight why they have garnered a decent reputation in the world of Hardcore Thrash Metal.
They simply own the stage for 40 minutes.
Now, I am not the biggest fan of this genre by any stretch, and for me, they do not resonate particularly well, partly due to the lengthy gaps between songs where a monotone buzz continues throughout. They also posture in the manner that many of this genre do with fist pumps almost before a note is played.
But, and it has been said before, Grove Street is not a band aimed at my age. This is a band who are empowering people 30 years younger than me, and judging by the reaction, they are doing a fine job of connecting. 
It is an eight-song set that opens with Hunting Season and closes with Path. Between that, the band steamroller their way through, encouraging big circle pits and the early surfers into action. And beneath it all, they appear to be sticking to their stated intention of having fun, for there are ample smiles across the band, including the ever-moving singer Ben Sullivan, who proves a tricky photo subject. 
I won’t be rushing out to pick up a copy of their 2023 release, The Path To Righteousness, but I will certainly not hesitate to watch them again, given the opportunity.
Vibrant, energetic and fun, Grove Street certainly stand their ground on this bill. 
Overpower
Alumni of the most recent chapter of the Moshin’ The Roof On series of compilations put together by UK Thrashers supremo Neil Brannegan, local thrashers Overpower are anything but overawed by setting foot on this stage.
They have 30 minutes and embrace the opportunity. 
Despite vocalist Matt Howson’s chainmail headwear, which proves something of a distraction, the band deliver decent Thrash Metal that is perfectly acceptable to the ears. Sure, it isn’t groundbreaking, but few of the Thrash generation are these days.
Instead, what we get is a solid blast that gets the inevitably cool-to-chilly venue warmer by several degrees. 
Big riffs, thick chugging guitars, and Howson’s machine-gun delivery make it an enjoyable half-hour that flies by. Under The Knife and Suffocation take the honours as standout tracks, but there is nothing here that disappoints.
By the time they roll across the line, more than just me in the venue are keen to catch them again sometime soon.
