Live Review

Your Heterosexual Violence: The Lexington, London N1 

5 October 2025

This was such a great gig! The Some People Have Too Much To Say album launch. A rare visit to the capital for evangelist scribe fangirl Ged Babey and proof Sunday Matinees are the future for veteran post-punk heroes.

I should not have doubted for one second that ‘The Mighty’ Your Heterosexual Violence could live up to their brilliant album as a live unit.  They were ‘on-fire’ – just like the characters in two of their songs. Almost a full house with all ages and genders transfixed by songs from the ’80’s, 2010’s and brand new material by a group unlike any other… although ‘a South East London equivalent to the Fall’ label does get bandied about…

This will be probably be the least objective review I’ve ever written as I have become so emotionally-invested in this band and their songs/music and history.  You’ve read the interview, I hope, and the album review. A chance to meet them and see them play was a dream come true – and a 4-8pm matinee which seemed perfect.

The band members are ordinary yet extra-ordinary people, a disparate bunch, variously: shy, talented, charismatic, driven, laidback, all playing a part making YHV an ‘ensemble terrible’ – a shockingly good band.

The Lexington, I’d never been to before, what a beautiful venue – perfect wood-panelled London boozer with a great PA in the upstairs. (When I win the lottery I’ll pay for them to install a lift so i can avoid those twisty stairs…)

The young, vibrant Break-Up Haircut opened – and got their hardcore fans dancing straight away and nods of approval from the elders – a triumph of sheer enthusiasm they reminded me of the first time I saw Voodoo Queens.

The Baby Seals I had pre-judged as a fun, filthy, frothy, feminist confection too, having checked out their songs about Nipple Hair and Lop-sided Labias online. But I was wrong – they had such an enormous sound, dominated by over-driven bass and gritty/fuzzy/twangy guitar that they were massively impressive. A real kickass rock band with the vibe of L7 and the snarl of The Darts but their own garage-punk feminist-warrior venom and humour. They just seemed ten times better than the over-hyped and uninspiring L@mbr!m! G!rls IMHO, and deserve their level of success far more, based on actual talent and songwriting.

I had spent the afternoon hanging out with YHV as they greeted the people arriving:  former band members, old friends and family, people from other bands (Simon Bromide and Dirty Viv) and among them Hank Cockpit (an anagram of his real name) who I was at school with 45 years back (‘The only time I’ve bumped into you since school was a Nick Cave gig in Kilburn…’ he reminded me.) Brilliant to see him and regale everyone with the legendary stories from his misspent youth involving bodily fluids and a couple of Prime Ministers.

‘You’d be no good to the Met’ someone said to singer Brian O’Brien as his ‘facial recognition’ skills failed him again – failing to recognise another friend he hadn’t seen for 20 years or more. It was a great coming together of old friends and new fans of the band.

Opening the set with ‘Changing The Subject’ a jazz-punk belter finds Brian hollering, “I think I don’t drink….(pause) Enough!” Which admirably he hadn’t.

Whilst Jem Freeman – guitar-hero swagger and second vocal, and Brian, shades, charisma and main vocal are the front-line, it struck me after two songs what a brilliant drummer they have in Andy.  Sat upright with low-level kit his posture reminded me of John Maher but his playing is skilled and jazzy – loose but tight – and literally the flexible backbone of the sound.  (It’s astonishing that he hadn’t drummed at all for twenty years  prior to the band reuniting in 2017.)

The storming set included two brand new unreleased songs with Brian keen to point out they are not a nostalgia act playing the album-in-order but forward thinking.

The pacing of the set was planned to a tee – The first four songs were the more punk-rock faster/shorter ones,  as were the last three… but the seven in between, the slow-build epics where Simon Birch on keyboards and Maris on violin become fully a part of the sound and the band become the real-deal and contemporaneously heroic in the same way as the House of All and Nightingales.

Every song got a roar of applause and the comfortably full house seemed totally captivated by the band making me feel vindicated as well as pleased for them – in particular Jemma Freeman  – who as well as reanimating the band, set up the whole event with numerous roles: stage manager, promotion, merch, roadie as well as guitarist and co-vocalist. There drive and passion for the band is incredible.

Brian O’Brien in a neatly retro t-shirt protesting a previous middle-eastern conflict (before it became a terror offense), commanded the stage, with a somewhat bewildered charisma.

If a non-physical entity can be a single, then this was our first single. Is how he introduced Love Will.

Under the stage-lights, one second he reminded me of a more crumpled Nick Cave like figure whilst the next he had the hang-dog air of a Shane MacGowan, and later the demeanour of a more jovial Mark E Smith.  (All three of the interviewees from that infamous NME joint interview/photo-session/piss-up – combined in one human form!) Brian genuinely seemed overwhelmed by the reception the band received.

(Gushing fan-boy critic I may be, but Brian still gave me a well deserved bollocking afterwards for pissing-off Charley Stone on door-duty. Sorry CS.x )

Brand new song Don’t Take This To Heart got an airing and was fabulous with Freemans bass sounding huge – as it did on the ATV-style reggae of Song From The Bottom Of The Heart. 

Just One Of Those Things was always gonna be a highlight with Maris violin being exceptional.

The quiet man of the band Dave Dodd was stage left and resplendent in Kandinsky shirt, a vital member having written the early song-lyrics as well as the music and who also plays with The Long Decline, whose just released Moribundiing is another essential 2025 LP.

Brian urging more of the crowd to dance only seemed incongruous later when you think about the song content involving wrist-slitting and setting yourself on fire.

No Search Results (For Weatherman on Drugs) was an absolute beauty and the final triumvirate of  the pogo-tastic I Could Be With You, the darkly comic The Boy Who Had 10,000 Parents and a mighty House Outside The World where the soundman cranked up the PA to overload, had people punching the air and singing along.

Brian looked knackered and emotional. Jem was beaming. A full hours set and Your Heterosexual Violence had well and truly launched their album with a stunning set. It was beautiful to see… Forty-three years on from forming, a band at the peak of their artistic powers, partially filling a gap in underground music left by The Fall, but a band with a character and sound all of their own.

(PS.  They were immediately invited back to the Lexington on 30th Oct to support female Monks tribute band Ye Nuns!)

Buy the album: all formats

Bandcamp

Future Live Dates:

30 Oct 2025 – the Lexington (support to Ye Nuns and Sassyhiya) 
01 Nov 2025 – Salisbury (Wiltshire) – The Winchester Gate
22 Nov 2025 – Resonance FM Live Session (Dexter Bradley Show)
23 Jan 2026 – Stoke Newington – The Waiting Room

 

All words  Ged Babey Photos courtesy of Rachel Gibson