AMONGST LIARS Off The Square, Manchester

DATE – 8^th November 2025

Words and Pictures – Graeme Wright

While I was familiar with their music, Amongst Liars are new to me in the live arena (as is the venue itself, the Off The Square establishment in Manchester.) After a blistering set with top-quality audio support from the sound desk, I will hopefully be reacquainting myself with both sooner rather than later. Chatting with the band after the show, I was surprised to learn that singer Leo Burdett was taking on additional vocal duties for the band for only the second time at a live show, after they had amicably parted company with previous frontman Ian GX. You never would have known this because the vocal performance was top-notch tonight, and the rest of the band also proved very quickly to be musicians of the highest quality. Despite the early start there was already a healthy crowd awaiting Amongst Liars, and from the first few bars of ‘You Are Not A Slave’ it was clear that the band’s brand of aggressive alternative metal was hitting the sweet spot of everybody in tonight’s crowd. The song itself is a heavy, powerful and insistent opener that was genuinely exciting to me and had me immediately marking these guys down as a band with a big future given the right breaks.

‘By Design’ contains some clever synth work that quickly builds to a huge chorus and is pretty much everything you could possibly want from modern metal. It’s both melodic and powerful and laid an earworm in me that I couldn’t shake for the rest of the evening. ‘Black Days’ is from the band’s first album, but in this version it can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with the more recent songs that the band has released, and it’s as powerful now as it was back in 2022. ‘Cut It’ buzzes around like an angry bee, and the bass is genuinely thumping me in the chest as it’s resonating that powerfully.

The all too brief set closes with ‘Wolf Machine’, which is another beast of a song that has the crowd headbanging in unison and offering an appreciative cheer as the set draws to a close.

I thoroughly enjoyed Amongst Liars and will go out of my way to see them again when they are headlining (which won’t be too far off if this performance is anything to go by.) Highly recommended.

SET LIST

1. You Are Not A Slave

2. By Design

3. Black Days

4. Cut It

5. Wolf Machine

BAND

Vocals and Guitar – Leo Burdett

Guitar – Ross Towner

Keyboards – James Brummeo

Drums – Adam Oarton