Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – the garage heroes who’ve ‘spread their love’ across the globe before selling out tonight’s show at The Troxy (supported by Night Beats) – are still remaking themselves every day. Celebrating twenty years of Howl, they’re presenting the album in it’s entirety in the way they’d hoped it would appear when it was released; a southern gothic masterpiece of sprawling landscapes and experimental vulnerability. While we were hoping for the stomping hits, and the decision to stretch their musical wings did entice with many moments of beauty and gorgeous emptiness, illness and labyrinthine vision-chasing hampered a show that could have bloomed into so much more.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club @ Troxy, London - 2025.12.17
The star of the show, 2005’s Howl, crystallises with the same polarising sentiment that characterised its release two decades ago, and from the second that Devil’s Waitin’ drifts, deceptively tender and delivered in near total darkness, it’s clear that this is a show that will split the crowd. Howl’s twanging echoes and muddy roots appeal, softly echoing like gutter gospel glide in Shuffle Your Feet’s rainy night tale and organ calls, and the stark beauty that BRMC unearth enraptures many in the packed theatre. “This is gonna be good,” growls Robert Levon Been, crouching over his guitar for the crashing rock of Ain’t No Easy Way, and he’s right: the atmosphere in the Troxy blooms whenever a hint of the garage rock fuzz we love from BRMC is flung in our direction. When we get a solo on Weight Of The World, or even the piano avalanches that frame Still Suspicion Holds You Tight, we rejoice. What we’re given instead is the spectral harmonies of Restless Sinner, a sacrilegious morality tale backed by chain gang sentiment and minimalist guitar, or lonely trombone twisting Promise into the blues. The band’s glacial explorations ice out some onlookers but they drift onwards, sending out notes like dandelion fluff. It’s a risky grand experiment, a mission outside the boundaries of our preconceptions. For some, the lonely darkness they evoke is a comfort; for others, it’s too far away from the rock satisfaction they seek.
A burst of slinky bass that heralds Red Eyes And Tears, and with just the tiniest twist in tuning, we’re hooked again. Pulsing red, Been’s vocals ease into a fuzzy purity as he embraces his guitar in child pose before a reprise, allowing each thought to disparate into the atmosphere. A stomped bass drum builds into Beat The Devil’s Tattoo: our phones up as the song fills the room, slowed and shivery, a wall of distortion and perhaps even an exorcism of their own demons as the frontman turns waving preacher over the crowd. Berlin is a punchy little burst of guts and gasoline, and when teamed with Conscience Killer we’re reminded that when they stick to the straight and narrow and they’re chucking out the gravel that we loved them for, BRMC can put on an awesome show. Before the pulsing electro from Whatever Happened To My Rock n Roll even really hits, we’re already mid-jump, finally getting a chance to shake ourselves loose from the solemnity, and the window of finally being able to party continues into Spread Your Love. Soul-searching and exploring the darkness at the heart of man might have been their goal, but the great connection comes through the garage jams that we were hoping for.
Tonight we got a show that demands reflection. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club desperately want to return to their folk era, the time when they were metaphorically striding to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil, and they want us to appreciate Howl in all it’s glory (to the extent that Been had a go at us collectively for not buying enough copies between songs). Maybe the world isn’t ready for it yet, or maybe slowing it down and stripping back every song to the bare bones was not the way to get the majority of the crowd to appreciate its majesty. Maybe we’re all too hung up on jumping to their biggest hits, or maybe we’re just in love with their pulse-pounding garage rock angle. For the hardcore this was undoubtedly almost a religious experience, but for those who like their night to be a slamming inditement of the power of speeding rock, tonight left a gap that only more speeding distortion could have filled.
Review of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Troxy, London, on 17th December 2025 by Kate Allvey, photography by Pauline Di Silvestro
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