By Darren Grayer.
Southampton outfit The Surge celebrated the release of their second album over the weekend with a hometown gig at Heartbreakers Bar on Saturday night (1/8/26).
Following the success of their 2023 debut Amped, which gained 30,000 streams and received support from BBC Introducing, as well as the title track enjoying a lengthy run on the South Coast Music Charts, the latest offering, titled Meow, aims to continue building their momentum and reputation for producing alternative punk/rock, packed with raw energy and razor -sharp songwriting.
It also marks a new chapter for the band. With the addition of powerhouse vocalist Queenie and acclaimed South Coast guitarist Jon Hulland, the intensity of their sound has become even more expansive, injecting fresh energy into the band’s trademark punk edge, with a combination of soaring melodies and uncompromising attitude.
To mark tonight’s celebrations, The Surge invited two more bands of similar mindset and energy to support them. First up were local noise merchants Bitter Self Exploitment, making their first appearance for a while, although you wouldn’t have thought it, even after a few bars into their first offering. What follows is a wonderfully entertaining set, played at breakneck speed, full of self-deprecation and laugh out loud dry wit – “Who the fuck am I, tell me who I am, I haven’t got a brain, I haven’t got a plan.”
Lead singer, Jordan Knight, can’t keep still for a split second, leaping from the stage in his cowboy hat, and delivering his vocals in the crowd in peak Eddie Argos (Art Brut) fashion. With song titles such as Don’t Wanna Pay My Bills, Here We Fucking Go, Big Guiness Man and the side-splitting anthem, Moustache Twat, you get exactly where these lads are coming from. There’s a swipe at the sometimes monotony of everyday life, without ever taking things too seriously, and it works superbly.
The Surge choose to play their set next, and at this point I’m thinking how do they follow that? The other trail of thought is that a great support band can at times, only serve to spur on those following and within the ranks of The Surge is some seasoned musical ability, so I’m sure they’re prepared!
And so it turns out, they were. The Surge immediately command the stage and hit the ground running in some style. Again, the pace of the songs is relentless from the start, with the twin guitars of Jon Hulland and Adrian Saunders creating a huge wall of sound with power chords and riffs galore, all being driven along by Pete Coombs’ menacing bass lines and Marcus Wright’s motorik drumming.
But lead singer Queenie takes centre of it all, not least because of her hugely powerful vocal delivery. Attired in a leopard skin dress and with long flowing red hair, she adds an enormous intensity to the songs, in the same way of Skin (Skunk Anansie) ,Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex), particularly on Low Returns, or even Playground Twist-era Siouxsie Sioux .
Punk rock can be a broad church in terms of songwriting and that is highlighted perfectly this evening. As predominant writer for The Surge, Pete Coombs takes in a number of themes from entitlement (Rich Girl), deprivation and the sense of threat in life ( Rain Keeps Falling), the sanctuary of friendship (Movies).
When The Sun Hits sees Pete take on the lead vocal and then duet with Queenie when the chorus comes along, to fine effect. It still rocks immensely but is probably as close as The Surge come to delivering an authentic pop/rock sound.
Snapface is an out and out rocker, with soaring guitars that almost venture into Nomeansno territory. The constant chant of ‘Snapface’ providing backing vocals to Queenie’s incredibly powerful lead.
The Surge fill out their set with several older songs from the Amped album, including the title track, In Love With Yourself, Pretty Smile and England’s Dreaming, which I’m guessing was inspired (at least in title) by Jon Savage’s excellent book which is probably the ultimate read on the genre and its creators.
If you like your music loud and fast, with stacks of guitar riffs and driving bass lines, all topped off with some of the most gloriously intense vocals, then The Surge are absolutely for you.
In a move that showed what real support for younger musicians looks like, The Surge invited young Bournemouth four-piece Typical Girls to end the show for them. It was a lovely ego free gesture that the Girls lapped up. Tunes delivered at breakneck pace, stacks of attitude and wry banter. In true punk fashion, there is, at times, a lovely ramshackle vulnerability about Typical Girls. I mean that in the nicest terms, because I think they have more than enough about them to follow in the footsteps of bands like Panic Shack and go on to bigger things. Anyone that covers Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps and Nameless, Faceless by Courtney Barnett gets top marks from this listener.
I can’t think Heartbreakers has hosted many louder evenings than this one, Punk rock is alive and well, 50 years after its incarnation, although I’d probably suggest the roots came way before that even. But the nicest thing about tonight is that three acts of such differing age (again, I mean that in the nicest terms), can all share the same spirit and passion about their music and produce such rich entertainment.
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