Live Review: Wolfbastard plus support - Billy Bootleggers, Nottingham 22/03/2026

 Live Review 

Wolfbastard plus support from Heathen Deity, Baosbheinn & IL

Billy Bootleggers, Nottingham, 22/03/25

Hosted by John Doe Promotions 

Billy Bootleggers has a knack for pulling nights that feel like more than the sum of their parts, and this one — John Doe Presents: Wolfbastard (plus support) four bands, was exactly that. From the first notes to the last, the room stayed locked in.

Sheffield's IL opened proceedings and immediately established that this was not going to be a night for easing in gently. Their set was built on tempo shifts and structural restlessness — just as a groove began to settle, it was pulled from under you, reshaped, and delivered back at a different angle. It is a difficult thing to make that kind of volatility feel purposeful rather than chaotic, and IL largely pulled it off.

The closer, All Points of Pain, was flagged as the band's most emotionally direct piece — though there was nothing fragile about it. A shattering groove underpinned the whole thing from start to finish, the kind of momentum that makes the room move whether it intends to or not. A strong and purposeful opening to the night.

Baosbheinn followed and occupied the second slot with the kind of set that does exactly what a second-on performance should: it raised the stakes without blowing everything at once. There is a density to their sound — not simply in volume, but in the atmospheric weight they generate — and their half-hour slot felt precisely calibrated for where they sat in the running order. By the time they finished, the room had noticeably darkened and focused. The stage was primed.

There was a palpable shift in the room as Heathen Deity took the stage. UK black metal stalwarts in every sense, they arrived with blistering precision and a visual presence that matched the sonic impact — corpse paint, and spikes galore catching the red stage light like something purposefully weaponised.

Their backdrop bore the band logo in white neon against the dark, and the set moved with the relentless purpose of a band who have long since stopped needing to make introductions. The earlier acts had built the temperature carefully; Heathen Deity arrived at full pressure and maintained it throughout.

The setlist drew from across their catalogue: Satan's Kingdom, Essence of Satan, Condemned all featured before they closed with TEBM — a ferocious finale. even a Mayhem cover,  dropped into the middle of the set like a grenade; which the room received it accordingly.

Wolfbastard closed the night and did so entirely on their own terms. From the moment they hit the stage there was a clarity to the chaos — this is a band that deals in filth and fury with structural intelligence, a genuine command of dynamics, and a sense of humour as pitch black as the music itself.

Their set was a fourteen-song broadside: It's Fuckin Dark opened and barely let up from there. Satanic Scum Punks, Can't Escape the Grave, Hail Satan Kurwa, Fear Exxxckutioner, Let the Bastards Burn — each track landing with the blunt force of a band entirely comfortable in the knowledge that they have something to offer and are in no hurry to pretend otherwise.

The aesthetic is inseparable from the point: spiked gauntlets, an unsparing delivery, and lyrics that wear a working-class punk-metal heart on a studded sleeve. Tracks like Buckfast and Drink Beer carry the kind of gleeful specificity that only lands when the band means every word — and Wolfbastard clearly do.

No affectations, no concessions, exactly the band they are.

Graveyard Slag closed it out and the room gave back everything it had. A four-band bill that worked from first to last — Billy Bootleggers at full tilt, exactly as it should be.