For most of Excessive Vis’ existence, the band was not a full-time endeavour for frontman Graham Sayle. As an alternative, it fitted in part-time between his day job educating design expertise in an impartial college, touring in his breaks. Now, a brand new educational yr is in full swing with out him – the hardcore band has grown to the purpose the place there’s no room for the classroom anymore. As a lot as this could be the profession development most artists dream of, the ever-passionate musician admits that it’s “fucking terrifying” to depend on one thing that “you set a lot of your self into” for an earnings.
“Every part feels a bit tense in the meanwhile,” he tells NME over Zoom from his front room in Brockley, south-east London, in mid-September, a month or so earlier than the discharge of their upcoming third album, ‘Guided Tour’. “I’ve spent the previous week in an existential disaster of being like, ‘Properly, what the fuck do I do now? I don’t need to go to work. What do I do?’” But, Sayle and Excessive Vis not too long ago put a few of the time he’s gained to good use and did one thing practically unthinkable within the culturally and economically tumultuous world of 2024: a free, cross-genre gig.
On September 7, throughout an overcast Saturday afternoon in Gillett Sq., East London, the band hosted a genre-hopping five-act invoice with out the obstacles of price, class or subculture at an occasion referred to as Society Exists – an area that would have been anybody’s. No police presence, no large companies getting their grubby fingers within the combine and pints fairly priced at £4. It’s nearly utopian.
“I undoubtedly would by no means have thought I’d be in a band that indicators issues for individuals”
Following units from riot-grrrl-turned-R&B musician Delilah Holliday, dreamy alt-rockers Whats up Mary, dub poet James Massiah and political hip-hop artist Jeshi, Excessive Vis take to the stage and tear by means of a 45-minute set. The punters down the entrance bark the phrases again at Sayle at a distance from which they may comfortably maintain a dialog with him. A swirling mosh pit opens up for ‘Altitude’, and ‘Speak For Hours’ is an enormous shout-along second price straining your vocal cords for, however there are extra sobering moments, too.
‘Mob DLA’ is a seething indictment of stone-hearted authorities forcing individuals to leap by means of hoops to get the assistance they want. “I’ve bought a brother with autism and cerebral palsy who’s assessed yearly to see if he’s as disabled as he’s at all times been,” Sayle tells the group. In the meantime, ‘Trauma Bonds’ is a second of solemnity that sends individuals screaming alongside, captivated by how a lot resonates with them: “We normalise the maddest shit. It’s not regular for individuals to get stabbed, to see individuals overdose, to see individuals kill themselves.”
It’s music that’s corrosive however emotional, with Sayle’s impassioned yell typically expelling deeply buried emotions – however as hardcore goes, Excessive Vis’ discography is extra accessible than most. There are hooks and delicacy in addition to aggression; they’re nearly a hardcore band for individuals who don’t like or know hardcore – a gateway to a world of two-stepping and self-referential mosh calls.
‘Guided Tour’ finds Excessive Vis nearly attempting to beat themselves at their very own sport, vying to see how laborious, large and – extra so than ever – hopeful they will go. After all, they’re removed from operating out of fury, however there are additionally moments made to spark the communal pleasure a stay present brings, like on the title observe when Sayle sings: “For those who want some assist, I’ll be your guided tour.”
When requested what provides him hope, Sayle factors to reveals just like the one in Gillett Sq.. “[That’s] the factor that makes you are feeling linked to individuals, really feel a part of a group,” he says. It reminds him of his roots within the tradition of hardcore that he loves as Excessive Vis expands and more and more reveals the potential to outgrow small, sweaty venues and take over the band members’ lives. “I don’t essentially need the factor that I like doing to change into work.”
Excessive Vis’ growth has taken them a great distance from after they shaped in London in 2016. Today, alongside Sayle, the band is made up of drummer Edward “Ski” Harper, guitarists Rob Hammeren and Martin MacNamara, and bassist Jack Muncaster. Off the again of their 2019 debut ‘No Sense No Feeling’ and 2022’s ‘Mixing’, the band’s post-punk and indie-flecked hardcore grew to become increasingly more in demand, taking them from underground favourites to scene heroes.
‘Guided Tour’ builds on these roots: it’s bolder, louder and locations its coronary heart extra readily on the desk. Every now and then, the cracks in its gritty facade find yourself being full of mild comparable to on the epic ‘Feeling Bliss’, which soars to a cinematic excessive for its swelling refrain. “Are you feeling bless?” Sayle asks, which might nearly be misheard as ‘bliss’ in his accent and as such, the phrase nearly has an unknowing, nice duality about it.
Elsewhere, early single ‘Thoughts’s A Lie’ highlights a few of the album’s extra experimental quirks, sampling South London vocalist and DJ Ell Murphy and embodying the identical gritty, cross-cultural power that ‘Society Exists’ possessed. “Ski despatched me the demo and was like, ‘I don’t assume it’s a Excessive Vis music’, and I used to be like, ’No, it’s. Let’s do it’,” Sayle tells NME. “We simply form of pushed it. It seems I adore it.”
Recently, the Excessive Vis frontman has been feeling the love from loads of different individuals, too. Already immediately, he’s spent hours signing posters for his or her merch retailer. “I undoubtedly would by no means have thought I’d be in a band that indicators issues for individuals,” he says with a barely incredulous snigger. The band’s progress in reputation continues to be an adjustment – he admits that speaking about himself in interviews doesn’t come naturally to him and a spotlight from different artists they’ve watched for years makes his head spin. When Paramore’s Hayley Williams shared their music on her Instagram story, he puzzled: “How the fuck has she heard it?” “After I was rising up, they had been a band on the telly,” he says. “[Her knowing who we are] is simply fucking bizarre.”
Like Excessive Vis, the UK hardcore scene they’re a part of is prospering. Though generally ignored in favour of its US counterpart, it’s a breeding floor for a number of shiny new names, from Leeds’ Larger Energy and Pest Management to Southampton’s Grove Avenue, the Manchester-based Going Off to Birmingham bruisers Cauldron.
Over the course of Excessive Vis’ journey and past, Sayle has seen hardcore undergo peaks and troughs, however to him, its exponential progress in the previous couple of years doesn’t really feel like a section. “I’ve seen individuals get a whiff of success after which change their sound as a result of they do one thing that they really feel like they need to,” he observes. “Now there’s individuals popping out of the hardcore scene and into the mainstream [but] nonetheless really feel essentially like a hardcore band. Velocity, for instance, look and sound like a hardcore band and so they’re uncompromising, however they’re additionally taking part in these huge reveals. It’s fucking sick.”
It’s no marvel, then, that Sayle needs to carry onto the style that he loves. It retains him grounded, at the same time as Excessive Vis get elevated onto greater levels. There’s a way as he speaks that the scene is the place he needs their roots to stay: “On an existential stage, hardcore reveals are actually thrilling areas and moments.”
“I don’t know some other sort of music that [puts you in] these conditions the place you’re like, ‘I might get damage, however I’ve signed up for this’,” he says. “Lots of my buddies are hardcore youngsters. I keep in contact with all the things. I nonetheless attempt to purchase information, I nonetheless go to reveals. I profit a lot from it.”
Excessive Vis’ ‘Guided Tour’ is out on October 18 by way of Dais Information
