Live Review: Enquire Within w/Ocean Planet, Away With The Seas and Verminthone at Facebar in Reading!

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet, makes you want to move those dancing feet? It’s a sunny Friday night in May so it’s Guinness and Metal at The Facebar in Reading as “The Blood and Rust Tour” brings the almighty Enquire Within to town courtesy of Hammerdown All In Management. The London Metal heads are set to perform cuts from their impressive third album “Doomsday Profit” and after witnessing them last year opening for Raging Speedhorn at Camden Underworld, there is a certain sense of anticipation… and it’s Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday too! What a legend!

Getting the party started are Verminthone [8/10] who set the tone with a toxic blend of Thrash infused Metal and Hardcore. They quite literally wear their influences on their sleeves with Crowbar, Warbringer and Nailbomb shirts amongst the five piece. A livewire ball of energy, their vocalist stalks the stage like a man possessed, his constant movement and feral vocals helping create a sense of tension while the rest of the band remain menacingly controlled. Each song hits harder than the previous one confirming they’ve got the set list right and they live up to their reputation for being heavy, dirty and miserable with consummate ease, bringing out the headbangers in the process. “Aorta” from their 2024 album “The Cull” is a masterclass in what they do, that sense of familiarity in their sound giving them instant appeal.

It’s a home town throwdown for Reading quartet Away With The Seas [9/10] who are a curious brew of Technical Deathcore orientated sounds. In amongst their spine juddering riffs and gutteral lows they also have some Progressive Metal flourishes with glorious tapping sections adding a vibrancy to some of their down tuned cryptic writings. The four piece are reliant on a laptop to provide the bass as the twin seven string Ibanez guitars deliver the barbed riffs, their drummer Harry Cook an absolute monster, capable of producing the kind of thunderous sounds that others have nightmares about. Vocalist Ollie Whitecross is a charismatic frontman with plenty of stories to tell, cuts like “Firewood” having a real charm to them. That doesn’t stop the two steppers and spin kickers getting wild in the pit though, a group of them threatening to knock out this writers front teeth with their backflips. Nothing but love.

Having survived Rabidfest in 2024 before going on to win Metal 2 The Masses in Oxford to play the New Blood stage at Bloodstock a year later, Ocean Planet [9/10] are an impressive calibre of band to have as direct support. The six piece have in their armoury a three guitar attack with which to inflict Technical Progressive Metalcore, the stage barely big enough to contain them and their gear as they bounce around. The Reading based band outgrew their instrumental origins and now thrive in a world of intricate fretwork, thunderous rhythms, ambient keys and harsh vocals. Their 2025 album “Immersion” proves a rich source of material with which to attempt to reduce the venue to rubble and they’re all smiles while doing it. We’ve heard fans call for one more song from impressive support bands before but tonight there is an audible sense of disbelief when the band announce they have just one more song left, which should tell you all you need to know.

Tonight’s headliners Enquire Within [10/10] have brought with them some extra lighting with which to illuminate the stage as well as a couple of smoke machines, going about their business like a well oiled machine. It’s cigarette paper fine margins but they do seem that little bit more relaxed compared to when we witnessed them previously and that is something that transmits to the audience in their performance. The solos are a little bit more flamboyant, Jacob Waller’s vocals having that little bit more warmth and with a decade of experience under their collective belts they all shine like diamonds in the rough. As musicians with each album they’ve grown in stature and they clearly have a lot of faith in the new album, the songs from “Doomsday Profit” dominating the set list and rightly so. There is still plenty of time for some older cuts though “Point Of No Return” an absolute masterclass performed with verve and swagger. Somehow they mange to squeeze that extra little bit of juice out of each of their songs, maximising their energy and leaving us in awe with how slick the performances are. Later on Waller takes a moment to thank a member of the crowd who is wearing an old school “Bloodlines” t-shirt before the band crank out a blistering rendition of the title track from their debut album, which is a touch of class. A bear of a man with a huge heart, he calls for the crowd to scream for him with a beaming smile and the warmth of their response helps ensure that tonight is nothing short of a triumph. After the final song of the set the band burst from feedback into a rousing rendition of the Slayer classic “Raining Blood” as an encore, those classic riffs bringing the house down in the finest possible way.