June 27, 2025| Dan Hillier |LIVE REVIEW
Gracing a heatwave stricken Bristol for the final ever show at Bristol’s Marble Factory, Have a Nice Life enlivened not just their legacy, but the legacy of venue they where closing. Joined by Deathcrash, where’s what happened on the night.
Deathcrash
Opening tonight; Deathcrash. There’s something just so fitting about watching a band of this nature in a room that is practically a warehouse sans any form of veneration in the middle of a British heatwave. Why, it’s almost as if this is a genre intended to expended whilst enduring a level of discomfort, regardless of it being mental, or in tonight’s case, borderline unbearably physical. Not that this a slight on Deathcrash however; they’re utterly fantastic.
Offering a kind of dreary slowcore that’s interspersed with moments of atmospheric post rock and pressurising doom, the London quartet peddle a kind of despair that’s questionably British. Simply, Deathcrash essentially channel that sense of lethargy and post-frustration exhaustion that comes with from having endure a life within a country that’s become more or less synonymous with misery.
The exasperated regret of ‘Third’ and the self punishment that characterises ‘American Metal’ encapsulates such a motif wonderfully, and quite frankly mostly physically given the sheer humidity in this room. After all, it’s impossible not to feel slow burning resentment towards a life thats stacked against you from the offset when expecting it in a room that doubles as an industrialist public sauna. Deathcrash may not the sound of the summer (don’t expect a Limmy endorsement), but they perfectly compliment the sheer authentic discount felt by all here tonight.
Have a Nice Life
As for Have a Nice Life, well, it’s hard to think of a band more suited to send off this venue; and not just for their name alone. For those not fully educated in Bristolian musical history, the Marble Factory – and the greater Motion complex that hosts it – has long been an independent hub for the musical counterculture. Nestled amongst dirty concrete buildings of industry and distanced from the commercialised city centre and corporate venues, this warehouse-cum-venue has long been the home of both raves and rages. In fact, whilst musically worlds away from tonight’s respective headliner, it’s impossible to separate the rave scene of the South West from Motion.
However, the jaws of gentrification remain ever ravenous. The towers and estates of industry that once stood amongst this venue are now either vacant or razed to the ground to make room for pristine glass, or should public rumour have it, student flats. Sadly, Marble Factory now faces the same fate. Despite the public push back, petitions and outcry, this venue has been sentenced to death, its execution imminent. Tonight is the final live event to be ever hosted here, the last show before the ground it sits on becomes nothing more than a host to towers designed with nowt but profit in mind. There’s no better band to soundtracks final breath than Have a Nice Life.
From the offset, such a sentiment is inarguable. Sounding as thick as the now chewable air of this room, as elemental as this heat and trigging a visible response within the capacity crowd that borders upon heatstroke induced delirium, the American band are utterly magnificent. As the creeping unease of ‘Cropsey’ lurches into ‘Defenestration Song’ and a particularly vampiric rendition of ‘Dracula Bells’ – which proves to the catalyst for an unedited pit filled with youths unafraid of heat exhaustion – Have a Nice Life are utterly spellbinding to the point of full immersion. Hell, ‘Hunter’ and ‘Science Beat’ are almost enough to transport one into the cold, dark, and invitingly chilly world that their sound feels summoned from.
Such is the full bodied immersion power of this band, something even Dan Barett himself doesn’t seem immune to it has becomes resigned to the floor or dancing along to the palatable indie stylings of ‘Trespassers W’. But as the set progresses, the main reason behind Have a Nice Life being the perfect entity to close this venue becomes ever apparent; their wide appeal to all corners of counter culture. Gathered here tonight is a plethora of demographics. Greying middle aged dads, mascara-clad goth types, new age shoegaze fans, grotty extreme metal aficionados and even Gen Z younglings – one insufferably following an obnoxious TikTok trend by waving a 3DS around – are in this room. Much like the band’s mercurial and extensive sound that spreads genres, and this venue’s history to hosting events to all genres whilst remaining independent, Have a Nice Life prove to be an irresistible pull to anyone with a penchant for the esoteric or music most gloomy.
Of course though, it’s the final passage of the set what gets the biggest reaction. A run of hits from the band’s legacy defining debut Deathconsciouness, ‘Deep, Deep’, ‘Bloodhail’, ‘A Quick One Before The Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut’ and ‘Earthmover’ incite more or less mass hysteria amongst the demographics here this evening. It’s a fitting end, both to this set and to this very venue, especially with the aforementioned ‘Earthmover’ particularly levelling this building before the waiting bulldozers can even get to it first. But as everyone filters from the venue into the refreshing summer night air for the final time, it’s impossible not to reflect on how this show will be remembered for years to come. We may have been waiting years and years for Have a Nice Life to tour the UK, but there’s no doubt that this is a show that will go down into the annuals of Bristol’s musical lore to be remembered forever.