Hailing from Dunedin, New Zealand, come an explosive trio who, despite playing around the traps for several years, just don’t seem to get the recognition they deserve. A four month wait since their last tour seemed far too long, but Die! Die! Die!  have returned, thank GOD, for their lengthy Oppressors tour. Tonight, the tour found me down at Richmond’s staple Corner Hotel to watch this band once again play out their fury.

Mixed between older tracks, such as ‘Auckland is Burning’, ‘A.T.T.I.T.U.D’ and ‘Ashtray! Ashtray!’, were some new songs from their third impending full-length release, which sound thicker and more atmospheric than their earlier, skeletal counterparts. Frontman Andrew Wilson spent equal amounts of time on stage and in the crowd amongst the thirty or so enthusiastic revellers in the front, absorbing the raucous performance.  Playing behind the three men was a backdrop of the 1932 film Freaks, playing silently in all its black and white glory, to the soundtrack of angular guitar, bold bass lines and quick, flighty drums.

The band’s set, a few minutes shy of an hour, flew by as they powered through their songs, ferocious and brash. Andrew is intriguing to watch, as he stands on the very edge of the stage, screaming his words out with a breathless passion, Lachlan by his side on bass, rocking back and forth. Despite a depleted crowd they maintained the abrasive brutality their punk rock songs radiate and though the Corner Hotel didn’t feel like the appropriate venue for the band, they conquered it with an unrivalled vigour, putting every fibre of their bodies into shaking everyone out of whatever rainy Saturday night stupor they were in. Ears were left ringing, heads were left aching and hearts were left shaking all in the best possible way.

Die! Die! Die! are an incredibly exciting band to witness. With two EPs, two albums and almost seven years of touring behind them, hearing new material refreshes the harshness of their songs and live performance.